


And Yet, I Fell For You

by karmascars



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Bottom Jensen, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mountaineering, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Rimming, Size Kink, if they do I'll update these, maybe eventually they'll switch, poorly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:08:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 32,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karmascars/pseuds/karmascars
Summary: ON HIATUS | Jensen aims to scale the highest mountain peak in North America: Mt. Kripke. Armed with book smarts and previous shorter climbs, he's confident in his abilities. But the last thing he expected was... Jared.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress. It's all outlined, I just have to finish it. There's no schedule, so subscribe if you want to be notified of updates as they happen. Thanks for checking it out!

Stepping down from his Range Rover, Jensen paused in the act of slamming the door to gaze upward along the craggy face of Mount Kripke.

At 14,498.5 feet high, it just barely outstripped Colorado’s Whitney as the tallest peak in the continental United States. Stately, intimidating, it was even more magnificent up close. Jensen stood in the frigid morning breezes and gazed up, up, up to the top.

Where other mountains here rose gracefully, almost gently from their foothills, Kripke thrust itself skyward with impudent tenacity. It had survived earthquakes, torrential rains, and the rise of civilization. It seemed to scoff at those who dared attempt to scale its heights. Many experienced climbers had posted harrowing accounts online. Kripke didn't welcome interlopers.

Even in early June, snow clung to the sharp bluffs above. Powder lead the way up the top half, trees like eco-friendly matchsticks with their green tops barely visible, gray rock stabbing through. Jensen couldn't see any trails from the parking lot but knew they were there. Just as the flags planted by previous climbers graced the very top

Mount Kripke was no joke. It was also fifth on Jensen’s bucket list. Today, he’d be meeting with an experienced outfitter to discuss the gear he’d need for the trip.

Finally slamming his door shut, Jensen met the eyes of his reflection in the tinted window. A light crinkle of frown and thought creased his forehead. His dark blond hair had lost most of its gel during the drive up, since he loved to ride with the windows down, and looked every bit as soft as his last partner said it was. Green eyes looked a bit pinched at the corners, a bit shadowy underneath. He'd been too excited to sleep.

His boots crunched across asphalt, and the sad littered remnants of permafrost that had lingered through the spring, as he crossed the parking lot to the tall wood-cabin face of Morgan Supply.

There were a few other cars in the lot. Not many, considering the comfortable hiking season was right around the corner, but it was also nine in the morning. Jensen knew it would pick up later in the day. He wanted time to speak with Jeff one-on-one to get a feel for the climb. Jeffrey Dean Morgan had scaled the peak of Kripke more times than anyone. Several other mountains, besides. As Jensen crossed the threshold, he glanced at a glass case displaying of Jeff’s climbing trophies as proof.

Jensen had far fewer, of course, since he usually climbed for his own enjoyment rather than sport. But he understood the drive. The desire to reach that next summit. The need for there to be _more:_ more mountain, more height, to stand even closer to God or the sun or further from one’s own mundanity.

Everyone climbed for different reasons. Jensen’s were his own.

At least his family was supportive. He didn’t know what he would have done without his brother and sister cheering him on, the grudging assent of his dad, the emotional hugs of his mother. When he was in his twenties, scaling whatever peak he could find, they used to stand at the bottom and wait for him. Now, they’d make do with video calls, but Jensen smiled to remember the way Mom used to burst into tears whenever he’d round the final bend.

The air inside the outfitter’s smelled of cedar, leather, and woodsmoke. It drew him back to the present with promises of another notch on his belt, another victory dinner at home. Sturdy rafters above him held faux-antler chandeliers, adorned with a few cobwebs. Circular racks of thick woolen shirts, weatherproof jackets, and overalls stood among glass cases full of taxidermy and antique climbing gear. Over the counter was a stunning, carved wooden mural of a mountain range, its shading expertly stained. Along the far wall spanned sectioned windows, the glass clean and clear. Beyond them, a patio with wrought-iron tables and chairs.

Beyond that, the mountain.

To the right of the racks, Jeff was with a customer, pointing out the pros and cons of various equipment. He looked almost exactly like he sounded over the phone: tall, broad-shouldered, his salt-and-pepper hair and goatee belying his strength and stamina. The man would be going strong well into his nineties, and there was no one better to teach Jensen the tricks of this peak.

Noticing him, Jeff waved Jensen along to the study room, a comfortable antechamber with stuffed armchairs and climbing literature. Jensen, who felt a little stiff this morning, opted to stand and study the photographs on the walls. He recognized a few of the prominent climbers from his readings by their signature gear, and a younger portrait of the man himself, giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up at the top of an even craggier mountain.

“The ice man cometh!” boomed Jeff, and Jensen turned to meet the man’s friendly hug. Jeff clapped him on the back. “Here to take a crack at my record, huh?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Fifteen climbs on Kripke alone? No, Jensen just wanted to check a box. “But you’re the man with the plan.”

“That I am, that I am.” Jeff’s tone became serious, drawing out the syllables. His eyes found the photo Jensen had been studying.

“That was Alaska, summer of ‘83,” he said, sounding fond. “I went up with five other guys, and none of ‘em could hack it. Took me three days! But I made it up there.”

“And back down, I guess,” Jensen joked. It sounded lame to his ears, but Jeff chuckled.

“Yeah. Surprisingly, that took longer. But you’re not here to talk about decades-old exploits on other mountains. You want to know about the Krip.”

Jensen nodded eagerly. He did. He wanted to know everything Jeff knew, everything the guidebooks couldn’t tell him. As a climber, he was experienced enough, but the best advice usually came from someone experienced—and there was no one Jensen knew with more experience atop this mountain than Jeff.

Hours later, he left with a head full of Mount Kripke and a backseat full of supplies, his entire body fairly thrumming with excitement. His back and legs ached, but he didn't care. He usually didn't, not anymore. Doing what he wanted to do surpassed any pain or weakness.

Weather permitting, he’d begin his ascent the very next morning.

 

* * *

 

That night, he sat at the table in his hotel room with some books Jeff had given him. There was a detailed guide of the mountain with testimonials from previous climbers, some general hiking books, and one that Jensen scoffed at: a compilation of all the evidence there was for the Mount Kripke version of Bigfoot.

 _Ridiculous,_ he thought. _Tourists’ll buy anything these days._

He flipped through it. Typical conspiracy literature—a few grainy photographs, but their subject could just as easily be a vagrant on the horizon. Nothing definitive. There never was.

Jensen couldn’t decide whether Jeff was messing with him, or was secretly a conspiracy nut, but either way, he closed the book and set it aside. Everybody knew there was no such thing as Bigfoot.

 

* * *

 

The next day dawned gray, but clear. Jensen breathed deeply the crisp, dew-drenched air, strapped into his favorite pack, and gripped his walking stick tight. The mountain rose up before him, both fascinating and formidable.

He thought back to what Jeff had said:

 _“Don’t let her intimidate you. You’ve got the know-how and the supplies. Take your time. Feel her out. Conquer that peak in your own time.”_ He’d sat back, gaze finding one of the photos on the wall. Jensen hadn't been able to tell which one. But there was a hardness in his voice that wasn't there before when he'd added: _“If you let your guard down, the mountain will bury you.”_

Another deep breath. _Taking my time,_ Jensen thought. _Okay._

Leaving the Range Rover in the climbers’ lot, front fender snugged up against a bollard obscured by weeds and gravel, he headed for the trailhead. There was a stout metal sign there listing all the different paths one could take.

Jensen wasn’t here for calisthenics or a relaxing day trip. He was here to reach the peak, whatever it took. His trail was marked with red. He was determined to think of it as a symbol for the love of climbing, not danger. After all, he snorted at himself, he needed all the confidence he could get, false or no.

The first few hours were relatively easy. The trails down in the foothills were wide, well-maintained, and well-trodden. He was apparently the only one with his particular goal that day—turning to look back down a few times, he saw colorful spots where less adventurous hikers took other paths. But by noon, he saw no one.

The weather seemed to be holding, though as the greenery became taller and sparser, a chill breeze began to whip at the edges of Jensen’s windbreaker. Clouds darkened, further obscuring the sun, though they seemed content to remain dry. For now.

Jensen stopped at a cluster of boulders to eat lunch, a protein-packed handful of jerky and nuts, and to stretch. His typical stiff spots reminded him that they disliked all this climbing nonsense, as they did every time. Jensen ignored them. It was practically ritual at this point.

He inspected his map with a frown. There were still many hours to go before he was staring down over the land from his goal. He needed to reach the safe spot to make base camp at the summit before it got dark, and that would come sooner in this weather.

It was concerning. All the forecasts had predicted it would be overcast, not that it would storm. Jensen knew that storms could brew out of nowhere up here, but he'd hoped he could place at least a little faith in Doppler radar.

Squinting up at the sky, he ground his teeth. _Jeff would have mentioned if he thought it would be too dangerous to climb,_ he told himself firmly. But telling himself and believing himself were two different trials entirely.

Folding the map, he placed it in his breast pocket with a protective pat and started up the trail again.

He ran into serious pockets of snow around three o'clock.

It was older, of course, and somewhat packed—but still dangerous where it lay over the trail, concealing pitfalls and loose rubble. Jensen was glad many times over for his boots and walking stick. The hike became a guessing game. After a few shocks to his system, he took to jabbing at snow on the trail ahead with the tenacity of a blind man.

The weather was holding, though the temperature seemed to be dropping steadily. Changes in barometric pressure renewed the aches in his joints, which complained intensely enough to spawn a headache at the base of his skull. Jensen continued at his steady pace. He was convinced he could make it to base camp before he had to break out his halogen flashlight.

A low rumble reached his ears. His first thought was, _Am I really hungry again already?_ Then it occurred to him that the rumble wasn’t coming from his stomach. And it was getting louder.

Jensen turned and gazed up the sheer face beside him in horror as his entire world became tumbling white—

Gravity flipped over itself, all direction meaningless, everything blotted out—

And then he knew nothing at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Jared frowned up at his ceiling, at the rumbling emanating through thick rock to rattle his furnishings and get dust everywhere. His family had despaired—or joked—at the futility of cleanliness, but Jared had always held out hope that the mountain itself would someday see sense.

 _“You can’t get sympathy from a rock_ ,” his gran had said. It seemed she was right again.

He scowled at her beaten silver mirror, which hung by his washstand. His own dark eyes glittered back at him through the well-groomed forest of his brown hair; the mane of it, his cheek locks, his beard. He looked nothing like his gran, but still imagined he could see her there, clucking her tongue at him fondly.

It was getting darker and darker inside as his tunneled skylights were steadily buried by snow. Sighing, Jared placed his bookmark back in his book, a mere two pages away from where he had removed it. He had lanterns, of course, for just such an occasion. They illuminated the place well enough—he could pick back up where he left off. But there was all the newly-distributed dust to consider.

Dragging the stiff bristles of his broom over the floor, Jared managed to get it into orderly piles, ready to be cast out.

The sleek hair on the backs of his knuckles abruptly stood on end.

Glancing up, Jared noted that the rumble had become much louder, more dust falling from the skylights and crevices still present where ancient stone packed up against itself. Vibrations echoed up through the calloused soles of his feet, every hair on his body now straightening in alarm. The mountain was in distress. Soon, it would vomit an avalanche.

Jared crossed his floor to the bare spot on one wall, pressed a palm flat to its surface, and began to mutter the prayer.

“Alacha’lula, our Protector / grant us stay from your wrath / for we are only worthy to live on your back / not entombed within your belly.”

Today she apparently deigned to aid him. As Jared finished speaking, the rumbling ceased.

With a small, satisfied smile, Jared picked up the broom again. He guided the dust and detritus into piles, and the piles in turn toward the niche in one wall that served as his hidden doorway.

One of the rocks in his wall had been cleverly fashioned into a door that swung inwards on rocky hinges. Jared was grateful for it, and several other concessions, which allowed him to keep living here long after the rest of his people had gone. He hadn’t built it himself. But thankfully, the one who had taught him how to repair it. He was able to slip in and out without anyone being the wiser.

Well, mostly anyone.

There were a few tales circulating in the town below; the same sort of conspiracy theories from other places around the world where visibility was low and creativity, rampant. Jared knew a few men in particular who would love to find him. But he was careful and knew this mountain like the backs of his hairy knuckles. They’d never get more than a glimpse. If they were lucky.

In the past, some had been. There were two times Jared knew of when his people had been sighted with consequences. One wasn’t his fault; it was no one’s, really. They couldn't have known. The other, though, he was careless—and that he regretted more than anything else in his life.

Thus, his self-enforced exile, staying to tend to Alacha’lula alone.

Jared reached for the knot of stone and pressed it inward, waiting for the customary whisper of the door, so he could sweep the dirt back out onto the mountain where it belonged. But all he heard was a grinding of stone gears, and a low groan, like something was straining them.

He frowned at it. Pressed the button again, a little harder.

The door inched inward.

Then it sprang open, smacking the far wall, snow tumbling in over Jared’s doorstep.

Alarmed, Jared cast aside his broom. He hurried to his utility closet and tossed random junk aside until he unearthed his snow shovel. The temperature inside his home had already dropped. While that on its own wouldn’t necessarily bother him, there might be so much snow he wouldn’t be able to close the door again, much less leave the house. _That_ would be a problem.

Leaving the shovel propped up against the wall, he ventured deeper into the cavern behind his furnished area, glancing over stacks of objects made indeterminate by the gloom until he lit upon his stash of water barrels. The snow would make good drinking and cooking water, readily available without having to scoop it out of the underground spring that ran through the very back.

Jared dragged a barrel and the shovel back to his doorway. The intruding snow had begun to settle, packing even whiter, which seemed to say there was more of it than Jared had first anticipated. Pushing aside a swell of worry, he drove the shovel into the pile.

Dig some up, drop it in the barrel. Dig some up, drop it in the barrel. Dig, drop. It became a mantra as Jared fell into the rhythm of his work.

The first barrel was nearly full when the blade of his shovel struck something that definitely wasn’t snow.

It was solid, for one thing. But not like rock. Jared probed the shovel in deeper, growing more and more confused the more apparent it became that the mass within the snow was large, almost as large as he was. Casting the shovel aside, he began to dig at the snow with his hands, tossing each fistful at the barrel more and more haphazardly. He’d mop the floor later.

His search was rewarded when his fingers met soft, resistant material. Jared grabbed a handful, and yanked.

A man tumbled out of the snow into Jared’s arms, knocking them both to the floor.

Jared blinked at him in shock. He didn’t seem to be breathing. His skin was so pale, tinged blue, his lips parted, eyes closed. He looked all at once like he could be sleeping, dead, or ascended to some higher mountain peak above the clouds.

Sucking in a breath, Jared realized he’d frozen just as still as the man in his arms.

Which he should do something about. _Snap out of it,_ he told himself firmly, struggling to his feet with his burden. There may be hope for this man yet—it didn’t sound like the avalanche had lasted that long, he couldn't have fallen far. With a discontented glance back at his gaping snow-filled doorway, Jared dragged the man to his bed.

Gently, he tipped his impromptu guest back until the stranger lay across the quilt with his boots dusting the floor. He was dressed for lighter weather, and some of his gear looked new. Jared guessed he had either been overconfident or taken completely by surprise.

He lifted the man’s legs one by one to remove his boots. The socks were dry so Jared left them on, but had to roll the man from side to side to remove his windbreaker. Beneath it were a plaid woolen overshirt and at least two other layers, soaked through. His pants were likewise dark with melted snow.

Jared removed them perfunctorily, glancing over smooth, unbroken skin.

“You’re lucky you didn’t hit any rocks on your way to my door,” he said.

Sliding him beneath the covers was tricky, the man’s leaden limbs refusing to cooperate, but at last Jared had him situated against the wall. Satisfied that he wouldn’t roll out for the time being, Jared then returned to his door. He fetched and filled another two barrels before he was able to close it. Then he heaved them over near the fireplace.

When he returned to check on his guest, he found a little color had returned to the man’s cheeks, and his chest visibly rose and fell—though he was still an unhealthy shade of blue, his breaths too shallow.

“This might frighten you when you do wake up,” Jared told the slack face as he stripped off his shirt, “but it’s the best way I know how to warm you up and keep you alive.”

And he crawled in next to the man.

 _Crags_ but his skin was cold. Jared sucked in a breath when they touched, gooseflesh breaking out all over his body, every hair standing on end. It tickled along his chest, but he ignored that, tugging the man closer. Between gran’s good quilting and his own natural heat, if the man were to survive, these would be the best conditions in which to do so.

Just before Jared drifted off to sleep, he realized that he hadn’t spoken so many words to anyone in a very long time.


	3. Chapter 3

Jensen swam back into consciousness in a drowsy sort of contentment, noting that he was warm. Comfortable. He was nestled in some kind of fur, turning and burying his nose deeper to inhale the spicy scent that rose from them.

Then the mound of fur moved— _was it a dog?_ —and groaned in a sleepy way— _that didn’t sound like a dog_ —and said, “Phe, ja’noclus torraday.”

Jensen’s eyes snapped open.

“What?” he asked. Then, “ _What?_ ” again, louder and more incredulous, as he took in the sight of whoever— _whatever_ —was lying in bed with him, propped up on an elbow, looking concerned.

This person, if he could be called, was covered in dark brown hair. An impressive mane fell over his ears, strands tucked behind one, soft bangs indistinguishable from that which seemed to sprout straight from his forehead. It spread atop his cheekbones just beneath his expressive hazel eyes, a beard clearly maintained along his jaw, but his slender neck got furry again on down around bare, shaggy shoulders...

Jensen met the Wookie's eyes again. “Where am I?” he demanded. “Why am I naked?”

“To’wada forje—”

Jensen shook his head. “Do you speak English?”

The person frowned. Swallowed, and worked his mouth around, like he was trying to remember how to use it.

“English… Like this?”

 _That’s more like it_. Jensen nodded. Swallowed.

“I will try again,” the person said. His voice was rich. It had a lilt to the tone, like he was teasing, even though it was clear he was serious. There was a slight burr, too. He sounded about as husky as he looked.

“You are in my home,” he told Jensen, who glanced around, barely noting flickering lanterns, furniture, a fireplace. “The avalanche knocked you on your ass, then swallowed it.” Now he really was teasing, but only for a moment, sobering when he added, “I found you on my doorstep.”

“On your doorstep? Wha—nobody lives on Mount Kripke.”

“Mount… Kripke?” The stranger looked amused again. “Alacha’lula.”

“Bless you.”

“Bless—” And the great shaggy head tossed back with a peal of laughter, one that took Jensen completely by surprise. “The mountain! We call her Alacha’lula. Kripke sounds like a bug.”

“Achahula, right,” Jensen nodded slowly. “Well, it's been fun, but I really need to get back to town.” He pulled his legs out of the blankets and tried to clamber over the overly-friendly barber’s wet dream to freedom.

 _Tried_ being the operative word. His legs might as well have been balloons filled with wet plaster. They got tangled again in the quilt on his way over. He just managed to save the goods up next to his thigh before sprawling, spread-eagle, right on top of his host.

Who blinked up at him, no guile, barely even breathing.

Their noses were only an inch or two apart.

Jensen let out his own breath in a gust. “I… don’t feel so good,” he admitted before his arms gave out beneath him.

 

* * *

 

Time passed in fits and starts. Jensen was vaguely aware of movement, of being jostled into a sitting position, of warm broth in a spoon at his lips. He thought he might have smiled, at one point. Mostly he just slept.

He was especially aware of those times when he was joined in the bed by the person covered in hair, but the spicy scent of him was calming, and Jensen was so tired.

Sometimes, he was aware of the person speaking in his native tongue, which to Jensen sounded more and more like the babbling of a creek down a mountainside. He would mutter to himself while he was thinking, too, and he recognized the signs of someone who’d lived alone for a long time.

 _It’s okay,_ he wanted to say at one point, _I’m here now._

But he slept instead.

 

* * *

 

One morning, for the first time in a very long time, Jensen blinked awake and found he had some clarity of thought. He let the gentle slope of stone from wall to ceiling swim into focus above him, lying on his back, cataloging the hurts as they, too, became focused. The soft white filtering in from skylights and the flickering orange of a fire seemed to be playing a synesthetic symphony arrangement for his pain.

He was lucky nothing was broken.

He was lucky to be alive. If he hadn’t been rescued by—

The reason he was in a warm bed, as well as whose bed it was, slammed into Jensen anew. He sat bolt upright, nearly dislocating his shoulder on the rock.

His head protested the sudden movement with such vehemence Jensen crumpled over himself, grabbing at it.

A warm hand slid across his back. “Ph—Hey,” came a comforting burr-laden voice. “As glad as I am that you’re up, let’s not try for the ‘and about’ part just yet.”

Strong, sure guidance led Jensen back down to the mattress again.

“I wanted to thank you,” he said, eyes closed against what was now far too bright a light, the way it flickered toying with the pounding rhythm in his head. He detested how thin his voice sounded.

“Thanks isn’t necessary.” Jensen could hear the person moving around, the clink of a utensil against crockery. Liquid being poured.

When a mug bumped against his lips, it came as little surprise. He accepted the cold, crisp water gratefully.

He almost didn’t mind that he was temporarily blinded. Seeing all that hair again would probably be as weird as it was the first time. Jensen didn’t blame his host for holing up in the woods; looking like Bigfoot’s nephew, he probably fit right in.

Something nagged at the back of his mind, something the person had said the first time Jensen saw him, but it’s lost to Jensen realizing he still thought of his rescuer as “person” and really should get a name.

So he asked.

There was a long pause before the reply: “Jared.”

“Jared?” Jensen repeated.

“Is something wrong?” Jared asked quietly.

“No, I just—” Jensen laughed. “Jared’s a pretty normal-sounding name. From the way you were talking before, I thought you’d tell me it was something like Hiawatha or Geronimo.”

Jared chuckled. “I’m not Native American.”

“I’m, uh. I’m Jensen, by the way,” Jensen got out, just as Jared continued: “My people are much older.”

Jensen’s eyes shot open. The light was more bearable now, and he was able to focus on Jared’s face, the expression earnest to be helpful beneath—just, so much hair. Jensen struggled to internalize what he saw. Even though the guy had put on a faded t-shirt with what turned out to be worn cargo shorts, there was no denying he was something else.

“What, uh, what are your people? Exactly?” He tried to keep his voice from going unnaturally high but failed.

“We…” Jared mused. “I don’t think we have a name in your language.”

“Oh, ‘zat so?” Fantastic. Jensen remembered thinking _Bigfoot’s nephew_ earlier and something inside him shriveled a little.

“I think the closest approximation is… what was it?” Jared’s face screwed up. “Sasqu’atch?”

And they were officially beyond the pale.

Jensen’s mind blanked and gave him nothing to say, just a high-pitched ringing noise. He nodded, tried for a smile that died in the corner of his mouth, and worked his jaws in hopes the words would come. They didn’t. They fled in the opposite direction, in fact, for Jensen suddenly felt bloated. Useless. A little gassy.

His stomach gave a loud, painful gurgle.

Maybe he was just really, really hungry.

Jared smiled in a knowing way. “Want to try the soup again?” he asked.

Faint memories of a warm, meaty taste had Jensen licking his lips. “I—yeah,” he said. “My stomach’s eating itself.”

_And you’re a fucking Sasquatch._

It made the hair make sense, that’s for sure. It was like _Herbert Meets The Hendersons,_ only taller and more… svelte. Jared slunk to his kitchen area and Jensen watched him go in fascination, noting the faded t-shirt and cargo shorts atop an undeniably attractive shape—unfortunately smothered with hair. Shades of brown caught the various hues of light and tossed them back at Jensen, who could admit that Jared looked, and smelled, clean. But he wasn’t human.

 _What is human, anyway?_ asked some other part of his rational mind shrewdly, if decidedly wry. _He stands upright and speaks. He's even wearing clothes. What more do you want?_

Jensen couldn’t argue. Especially not when Jared returned with a steaming bowl, a spoon, and a chair.

“Open up,” he said, like Jensen was an infant.

“I can feed myself,” Jensen protested. He reached for the spoon.

Jared let him take it, and Jensen was about to crow his victory when he scooped up a spoonful of soup—and promptly dropped it. “Fuck!”

“Heavier than it looks, huh?” Jared teased. He took up the spoon again, not even seeming to care that Jensen had just splashed soup all over his floor.

Jensen glared at the spoon.

“It’s okay. Small steps toward the goal. O~pen wi~ide,” Jared sang at him, grinning, zooming the spoon in.

With a roll of his eyes, Jensen opened his mouth. Jared tipped the broth in.

Jensen’s eyes rolled back. He sagged in the bed, his mouth alight with flavor. Hastily, he swallowed so he could exclaim, “That is _fantastic._ ”

Jared ducked his head, scooping another spoonful up before looking at Jensen again.

“I mean it,” Jensen insisted, slurping up the next offering. “What _is_ that?”

“Mountain goat and wild onion, mostly,” Jared said, looking down at it. “I always make it when I get sick.”

“That’s…” Jensen nodded toward the soup, suddenly exhausted, but so happy about his two mouthfuls. “Good stuff.”

Jared set the bowl aside. “You should rest.”

“I should, yeah…” Jensen’s eyelids were growing heavier by the moment. He would ask if he’d been drugged, but he just felt drained, his mind turning gratefully to sleep as a respite from the ache in his limbs. An ache that had been there the whole time he was awake, but he’d been distracted. By Jared.

There was something important about that, something he should remember. But his mind rebelled at the heat of his fever, which he could feel now like a second cousin to the warmth of the fire and the weight of Jared’s blankets, and fled altogether.

“You’re doing well,” Jared told him, as though from a great distance.

Jensen smiled his way down into sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Jared rinsed the bowl out methodically, one ear attuned to Jensen’s feverish snores. He had to force himself about his usual routine. Never mind that he had a sick _man_ in his bed—he’d had days to become accustomed to that particular shock—but that man was now awake and aware, and Jared had just blurted out his people’s most base taboo.

Unless he missed his guess, Jensen recognized the word. That was when the bottom of Jared’s stomach had dropped out. He’d welcomed the change in subject to the food, because at that moment Jared hadn’t had a thought in his brain besides a long string of forbidden phrases.

He was an utter fool. It didn’t matter how long he’d lain in exile without seeing a friendly face. He had no right to expose the tribes—and himself—like that. He could have lied, said he was a circus freak or a hirsute hermit, but not now. Jensen knew the truth now.

Jared wondered how long he had before Jensen tried to leave.

 

* * *

 

It turned out he didn’t have to worry about that. Within the next few hours, Jensen’s fever spiked. He soaked the quilt in sweat, all of him deathly pale, his eyes rolling in their sockets when they were open at all. He muttered incomprehensible things.

Jared paced.

He had precious few herbs, but without hesitation, he used them all. Nothing seemed to help. He couldn’t leave to fetch more—even if he could leave the door open and let his home get colder without anyone’s risk of secondary illness, he had no way of knowing if the snow was packed down tightly enough yet to dig through, and he definitely couldn’t risk leaving Jensen alone.

The snow was an unexpected boon, though, in that he was able to use rags soaked with it to bring Jensen’s fever down. Since the bed was already wet, Jared placed the rags at Jensen’s joints and around his head. Jensen seemed to like the chill, nuzzling into the cloth and Jared’s numb fingers. Smiling at the touch, Jared realized—as he had with the first words he said to Jensen—that these past few days were the most he’d ever touched anyone else.

And they were purely platonic touches, of course. Just because Jared was lonely sometimes did not mean he was stupid.

Jensen moaned in his sleep. Accompanying it with a sigh, Jared turned from his doorway and shut the door. He still couldn’t tell just how buried they were.

He stoked the coals in the fireplace, swirling them with his grandfather’s poker, watching the sparks crackle and pop. The warmth of the embers was so different from Jensen’s fever. They were inviting, nurturing, versus the febrile malignance. Jared wondered what Jensen might have done in his place, if one of Jared’s people had crashed into his doorstep in the snow, and what might come of the wonder warring with fear he saw in Jensen’s eyes when Jared told him that name.

 

* * *

 

Jared was once again trying to read his book—which he’d found at one of the rest areas on the other side of the peak—when he heard Jensen stir.

“H’lo?” the man croaked. It was muffled by the quilt and sounded wrung dry.

As quickly as he could, Jared grabbed the pitcher and a nearby mug. He poured a drink and nearly spilled it. Jensen was struggling up into a sitting position.

He looked better than he had. His skin was wan and drawn tighter against his cheekbones, but at least some healthier color had returned. The burgeoning scruff on his face had flecks of amber glinting amid the darker golds and browns of his hair. His lips, though chapped, were no longer blue.

They both helped him drink with quiet concentration.

Once he’d had a few strong swallows, Jensen sagged back into the pillows. “This thing is kicking my ass,” he said. “What is _wrong_ with me?”

“It’s just a cold,” Jared said. “But I don’t have the right supplies.”

Something must have shown on his face.

“Hey,” Jensen said, “I’ll be fine. At least I didn’t break any bones, right? That’s gotta count for something.”

“Right,” Jared repeated softly. He couldn’t help a little smile.

“There he is. I saw that, mister.”

“All right. Don’t strain yourself.”

“On your account? I might just make the exception.”

This was easy, the flow of this banter. Jared found himself amazed at just how easy it was, at how his shoulders and back relaxed the longer they talked. Teased, more like.

Jensen seemed to default to teasing. Even when illness laid him low, he quipped and smiled. Jared would not have expected that, especially not from a hiker who stumbled across him like this. A camera would have made sense. Or a gun.

But this was… pleasant. For all that Jensen wasn't out of the woods yet, he had managed to set Jared at ease. And while Jared really was concerned for him, the man did seem to have gotten more strength back this time. He already looked healthier for the water.

Jared had to laugh when Jensen cut him off, asking plaintively: “Got any more of that soup?”

He could hardly remember what it had been like, being content to live alone. This was far more enjoyable, and Jared had almost forgotten the nature of Jensen’s arrival and what it meant for not only Jared, but his entire way of life.


	5. Chapter 5

A cold was nothing new. Jensen had weathered plenty of those.

But never in a cave on a mountain he was supposed to be climbing, with _Bigfoot_ taking care of him. It felt like he was living in a tabloid. What was next, Bat Boy?

Every part of him was weighed down, wet cement refusing to dry. He let the feeling press him into the bed, which was sturdy, warm, and huge, and lay on his back watching Jared move around his cave.

His home.

It barely looked like a cave. Only the rounded slope of the walls and bare stone gave it away. The rest of it was, well, homey. This place felt more welcoming than Jensen’s apartment. It was definitely more organized. Kripke’s granite didn’t seem so imposing in here, either.

At first, Jensen had trouble locating the door. It was fitted so snugly, it disappeared into the wall. Only the darker seam and lack of anything stored up against that space told him where it was. To the left of it lay the kitchen area: a rough-hewn wooden table and two chairs, and a stout slab counter crafted from the same rock that made up the walls. Jared had _cabinets._ He had a sink—no running water that Jensen could see, but a bucket with a ladle. The drinks of it he brought Jensen in his hefty mugs were clear, crisp, and cold, like a mountain stream.

To the right of the door was a vast rocking chair, made of tawny wood that looked like it had been sanded and possibly sealed. It gleamed dully by the light of Jared's lanterns and the fireplace beside it. Dug out of the rock itself, the fireplace was large enough for Jensen to crouch in. An enormous black cauldron hung in there. The savory smell of that amazing broth wafted strongest from it, warm and tantalizing.

On the wall at his shoulder, beyond the foot of the bed, Jensen could see a large, oval mirror hanging from what looked like a railroad spike driven into the wall. A washstand peeked from beneath it, a shallow basin set into a base of the same wood as the rest.

And as Jared moved around, he didn’t have to duck beneath the high ceiling. The place was clearly designed for someone larger than he was. He could swing a long arm up over his head to stretch, or scratch his back.

All this Jensen took in blearily, caught in the semi-conscious miasma between waking and sleeping.

 

* * *

 

Whenever Jared caught him with his eyes open, Jensen got a little smile. If Jensen could muster a smile back, Jared's grew. Whiter teeth than Jensen ever would have expected peeked out of all that hair. It was pretty great. He tried to make it happen as often as possible, but he was just so damn tired.

Eventually, though, he had to wake up. Or rather, his bladder insisted.

“Jared?” He had to clear his throat, rough from disuse.

Quickly, Jared appeared at his side.

“Gotta, uh…” Jensen searched for a polite way to say it. “...relieve myself.”

“Do you want to use the bucket?” Jared asked like Jensen was already familiar with it.

Jensen glanced around, his cheeks heating. “The… bucket… I’ve… used before?”

Jared nodded. “We rolled you on your side.” He too glanced aside, a similar flush mounting beneath his facial hair. “I looked away.”

“Oh god,” Jensen muttered. “Okay. Yeah.” His bladder was demanding it now. “Bring on the bucket.”

It felt demeaning, awkward, and hurt like a bitch to roll over that far, but the relief he felt when it was all out was worth it. Languor flowed through his limbs.

“What do you do with it?” he asked, curious, not sure he wanted to know.

“There’s an underground spring in the furthest cavern,” Jared replied. “It flows downhill. Normally, I would go…”

He kept talking, but Jensen lost the thread of it, drifting almost against his will back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

He woke to singing.

A lyrical rumble, soft and lilting, reached him first within the course of his dream. But it was more real than the dream was. Soon, he found himself waking to it.

He listened.

There was no understanding the words. The tone, though… it wasn’t quite melancholy, like the song itself was meant to be joyful, but the way Jared sang it made Jensen think he’d sung it alone for a very long time. It rose and fell around a rhythmic scratching Jensen only identified as the sweep of a broom when he opened his eyes.

He watched Jared move about the cave, doing chores he obviously did often, and could probably do in his sleep. He swept, piling the dust and whatnot into a little bin in the corner. He washed their bowls with a spare amount of water and set them to dry. He hung the rag by the fire and sat in his rocking chair.

The song ended, or maybe he just stopped singing it. Either way, the silence rang.

Jensen watched him stare into the fire for a long time before he picked up a book and set about reading it. The firelight caught in his eyes as they moved. A few times, his lips formed words as he puzzled them out. Jensen watched until his eyelids grew heavy again, still feeling like utter shit, but also… peaceful.

He wondered if Jared would ever teach him one of those songs, if he even deserved to learn one.

He dreamed of a chorus under the mountain. It rumbled and rang through catacombs of stone, stalactites and stalagmites catching the sounds and weaving their echoes into a symphony of voices too powerful to bear.

When Jensen woke again, he blinked his lashes unstuck, no idea why there were tears dried on his face.


	6. Chapter 6

“Tell me more about the mountain,” Jensen said, as Jared finished clearing away the remains of their latest meal. “Like.... why do you call it Appachula?

“Alacha’lula.”

“Yeah, that. Where’d that come from?”

Jared wrung out his dishcloth slowly, a distant look in his eye. “I was telling the truth when I said we are not Native American, but we are native to this land, from before it was divided and became one of the Americas.”

“From Pangea?” Jensen gaped.

“Is that what you all call the One Land? Then, yes.” Jared dragged his pinewood rocking chair over to sit beside the bed, close enough to smell Jensen’s natural musk over the gentle scent of the fire. Jensen had begun complaining that he stunk and needed a ‘shower,’ but Jared liked the way he smelled. Besides, it was far too cold for Jensen to bathe in the spring the way Jared usually did.

He continued. “Since our two peoples developed side-by-side, our languages sound very alike in some ways, but in others, my ancestors maintained traditions which were lost to other parts of the world after the Great Divide.”

“So what does it mean?”

“What?”

“Alacha’lula.” Jensen sounded out the syllables. His little triumphant grin when the careful pronunciation got a satisfied nod made Jared feel warm all over.

“Well,” he said, glancing away. He picked up the dishcloth again to distract himself. “I guess the closest approximation in English would be 'pride-white.' Because it is a white cap mountain, stark with rock, and to stand at the top gives one a feeling of satisfaction… But it’s more than that. It’s home.”

And this particular mountain had been home for generations. Part of why Jared’s gut still ached to remember his family had left. In the oldest caves, the history of his people was preserved in inks and fatty solids, and another part of the ache was knowing that when Jared was gone, so would be the true meaning of those paintings.

Jensen nodded. “I get you. And y’know, for all that English is such a sprawling, weird-ass language, it sure likes to fall short a lot of the time.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“What would that explanation have sounded like in your language?”

Jared wasn’t expecting that. Nor that when he spoke, Jensen’s movements and breathing would slow, sitting with eyes half-lidded drinking in each of Jared’s words.

When he was finished, Jensen drew in a long, slow breath.

“It’s got a musical quality to it,” he said. Then he cocked his head at Jared with a sudden, mischievous curiosity in his eye. “Okay, I gotta know: if you’re a white-peak Sasquatch, which I think they call a yeti?” At his pause, Jared shrugged. He’d never heard that word before, but he wasn’t exactly widely traveled. “Well, uh, so you live in snow, but your, uh, hair? Is brown? How’s that work?”

“Ah,” Jared chuckled. “I’ll show you.”

He grabbed one of the empty snow-collecting barrels and hauled it to the door. With the shovel, he filled it with snow, and then shut the door again, dragging the barrel over to the bed where Jensen sat peering at his actions.

Jensen shivered, rubbing his arms with both hands. “That’s freakin’ chilly, even from here!”

“Yes, I suppose it is very cold to you,” Jared mused. He’d known it would be, what with Jensen’s great swaths of exposed skin, but he hadn’t expected such a reaction from a barrel-full. Granted, the barrel stood to Jensen's chest, twice as wide. “Now, watch.”

Jared plunged his arm into the snow to the shoulder. He left it there for a few moments to ensure a complete transformation, then removed it.

A cry of shock and delight tore from Jensen. “You’re a goddamn chameleon!”

“A what?” Jared inspected his arm. As usual, the hair had completely bleached of pigment, and his skin beneath was paler. Almost translucent.

It had been a while since he’d thought to look at himself outside. He’d forgotten just how stark the transformation could be—and it was especially stark now, with only one arm changed, accompanied by the joyous disbelief of an outsider.

“It’s a reptile that changes the color of its skin to stay hidden in different environments,” Jensen rattled off quickly, leaning forward, grabbing for Jared’s arm so he could pull it closer and inspect it. “This is incredible, Jared.”

So was the feeling of Jensen’s fingers probing through his hair, inspecting, gliding over his skin… but Jared wasn’t about to say so. He just hummed and nodded, and enjoyed the sensation.

“No wonder no one can ever get a clear photo of one of you guys! Man, if I had a camera…”

The pleasant feeling came crashing down around Jared. “Jensen—”

“This is the scientific find of the century! Jared, you could be—”

“ _Jensen_ ,” Jared said firmly, and maybe a little too loudly, judging by how quickly Jensen dropped his arm. He continued, softer, “You can’t tell anyone about me.”

“Oh.” The excited light went out of Jensen’s eyes. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. You’d be hunted.”

 _Or worse_ hung in the air like a foul stench.

The silence clung, and both of them fidgeted. Jared tried to break the tension by asking if Jensen would like some water, but Jensen just shook his head.

“No, I think I should probably sleep some more.”

Then he lay back down stiffly, a tense line of muscle, with his head turned from Jared.

Who sighed. “Jensen…”

Jensen shifted, but didn’t say anything.

Jared shoved the barrel away toward the fire with a foot. His arm was already darkening, fading back to brown.

“When I was young,” he said, “a hiker saw my cousin. It wasn’t the first sighting, or even the most dangerous—the legend of this mountain had been told down in the town for generations, and the hiker didn’t have a gun. But what we didn’t know was the camera had been invented. Widely distributed. And this hiker did have one of those.

“The photograph was printed over and over again. People flocked to this mountain with copies of it and cameras of their own, hoping to catch a glimpse of the creature. We were hemmed in from all sides. Pressed by humanity. My parents and the other elders convened and decided to leave. But our traditions dictated there had to be a caretaker, someone left behind to watch over Alacha’lula in the absence of the tribe.”

He drew a bolstering breath. “I was very young, and I did not understand what was going on. I did understand that I should obey my parents, especially when they were afraid—and there was fear in their eyes when they spoke of the humans. But I was very young, and very foolish.

“The same cousin who had become the poster child for hunting us wanted to see a person up close, and I went with her.”

Jared hadn’t actively thought about what happened that day in a long time. He hadn’t needed to; it was his biggest regret, and it usually cropped up during normal trains of thought to strike at him.

“We had a perfect viewing spot and were able to observe the people below for quite some time, but it didn’t occur to us to watch our backs until we were surrounded.”

Jensen slowly rolled over to face him, eyes wide. “So what happened?”

“We were captured. Inspected. They wanted to take us back to the town, where now I am sure we would have been violated before being sent somewhere else.” Jared couldn’t help how grim he sounded. As an adult, he understood his parents’ fears. “We were trussed up like trapped game and all seemed to be lost, when a howling pack attacked the camp.”

“A pack of...”

“My people.”

They had swept down over the camp at twilight and decimated everything, making off with their captive children, leaving false evidence to suggest it really was wild animals who caused the wreckage and killed every human there.

“After that night, the elders decided this was no longer a safe place for us. And since I took the blame for what happened, I was elected to stay behind.”

He couldn’t look at Jensen. He didn’t want to see whatever was on the man’s face, be it pity or disgust or anything else. But then a smooth, tanned hand crept out and found his forearm again, smoothing over the hair there before gripping tight.

“I’m sorry, Jared.”

When the hand retreated, Jared missed its warmth.

“So you’ve been here, alone, since you were a kid?”

At that, Jared did meet Jensen’s eyes again. There was disgust there, but it wasn’t directed at him.

“I was able to fend for myself,” Jared protested. “Like every child of my tribe, I was raised from infancy to know the ways of our people.” It was hard, of course, but he didn’t see any point in complaining about it. The past was past. And somewhere along the way, Jared had accepted his punishment.

From the look on Jensen’s face, it was all obvious, but Jensen did not agree.

 

* * *

 

While Jensen slept, Jared filled the barrels anew with snow. The drift in front of the door seemed endlessly deep, and for the first time, Jared let himself worry about what might happen when his stores began to dwindle. He had plenty saved up for himself, and he could go longer on less, but humans were fragile. And when Jensen was back to health, he’d need a lot more than soup.

Jared’s mind once again tried to stray into indecent areas. He dug his hands into the snow, watched the hairs ripple and bleach, and carefully thought about nothing. Especially not Jensen. Or his… needs.

 _Damnit_.

Despite being from a different species, Jared was human-shaped and had much the same needs. He hadn’t even been aware of them yet when his people left, but over the years had become both aware and accustomed to the peculiarities of them. And just how destined he was to remain alone, as no human would want to lie with him, and his people were scattered to the winds. He’d have better luck finding an emerald on this mountain than a mate.

He understood. He didn’t want Jensen to suffer.

 _Shut up,_ he told his nethers firmly. _Jensen is suffering because he is sick, not for lack of companionship. You will not ruin this._

His nethers pulsed in reply. Despite the chill of the snow, heat was pooling in places it shouldn't have been, flesh stiffening and rising as his thoughts insisted on turning once more to indecency.

Jensen had very plush lips. What might they feel like around—

With a growl, Jared resumed his shoveling, ignoring the point of heat at his groin. _You will never feel Jensen’s mouth on your body,_ he told himself in time with each shovelful of snow. _You will not jeopardize the first friendship you’ve had in so long because you want things you cannot have. You will never lie with that man._

Behind him, Jensen turned over in his sleep. Like a moth to a flame, Jared turned, tracing the line of Jensen’s body beneath the blanket, hating himself every further second he spent on it.

He wrenched himself back to his task.


	7. Chapter 7

Jensen _hated_ being stuck in bed.

He always had, even when he was a kid, and that hatred only grew as he got older. Something not only about the lack of control, but being unable to do things for himself, drove him up the wall. It was an injustice he refused to suffer any longer than he absolutely had to. So, every time he woke, he made a point of trying to get out of bed.

At first, it was just sad. The soggy feeling in his legs refused to go away, and lying prone for so long without stretching had kinked his back up something awful. It hurt to roll over, hurt to move, but he screwed up his face and hissed through his teeth and kept trying, angrier and angrier every time he failed.

The first time Jared offered his arm, Jensen ignored him.

The bed was plenty of leverage, he insisted, and shoved up with every intention of making it to his feet. He crashed back down so fast he almost hit his head on the cave wall. He lay there staring up at it, willing tears not to form, so pissed at himself for how helpless he felt that he shook.

The familiarity of it was perhaps the worst part. He had thought it behind him; as though he’d never be laid out like that again despite the fragility of people in general.

 _Idiot,_ he railed at himself. _Overconfident, risky motherfucker._

But Jensen was far from broken and knew it. He’d made it this far.

When he did finally sit up, Jared was still there, staring off into the fire—and when Jared turned back to him, he just offered his arm again silently. It shouldn’t have surprised Jensen as much as it did that when he applied his full weight, Jared barely moved. Of course he was that strong; he lived by himself on a mountain at an altitude many humans didn’t care to traverse.

He was also as patient as the most professional physical therapist Jensen had ever met. They worked Jensen forward to the edge of the bed, then carefully let his feet find the floor.

The first time Jensen tried to stand, he toppled forward instantly.

Biting back all the swearing he wanted to do, he clung to Jared with what felt like a nasty grimace stretching his whole face. He wanted so badly to get past this obstacle. Somehow, he’d forgotten just how awful stuff like this made him feel.

His temperature still spiked at times, putting a hold on their ventures. That just made him feel worse. Not only was he stinking up the place with his fever sweats—no matter how Jared reassured him he didn’t smell bad—he wasn’t sleeping well, sometimes waking himself up with his own rough breathing or what he was sure was a shout. Who knows what he was saying in delirium.

But every time, Jared appeared at his side with a cool cloth and helped him relax.

The guy wasn’t even sleeping in his own bed anymore. Jensen felt terrible about that, too. At one point, he had to laugh about how many things he felt so impotent about, making a terrible black joke to himself about a potential for sterility with all the luck he’d had so far. It drove him even harder to stand, to walk, gritting his teeth and returning to his rigorous stretching regimen even though the first few times made him feel like screaming.

The first time he took more than a step forward, he really did cry. Jared, at his side, misunderstood and asked in concern, “Do you need to sit down?”

“No,” Jensen hiccuped, “not yet. Not yet.”

He did need to, shortly. But it was a success nonetheless, and he took it fiercely to heart.

Never again would he be a burden on anyone but himself, he had vowed, and now he swore it all over again. Even if it was beyond his control, he’d do whatever he could to avoid it, especially for Jared’s sake.

Thankfully, Jared never asked why it took him so long to recover.


	8. Chapter 8

With Jensen’s fever broken, Jared began spending nights in his reading chair. It wasn’t made for sleep, especially not for someone Jared’s size, but it was better than living out his nightmare of waking with his rock-hard erection snug between Jensen’s cheeks.

But his hope that Jensen wouldn’t notice and say something was in vain.

“You know, this is your bed,” the man said casually. He was working on walking from the bed to the table and making steady if slow progress. His clothes, long since dried, fit him well, as did the steady growth of his beard. He moved like someone twice his age, his joints evidently unhappy with the time spent prone, his muscles with the feverish spasms. But Jensen was young and in decent shape from hiking. He’d be fine in time.

Jared almost couldn’t contain his warring emotions about that fact. Not that he wouldn’t want Jensen to heal, but he knew once Jensen healed, Jensen would leave.

“You are my guest,” Jared said. “There’s only one bed.”

“Yeah, but—” Jensen lowered himself into one of Jared’s sturdy wooden dining chairs with a grimace. “You weren’t too shy to share the first night.”

Hot in the face, Jared protested, “You were freezing!”

“True. But it’s still your bed. I’m sayin’ I wouldn’t mind, is all.” Jensen cocked his head, looking at Jared’s reading chair. “It’d beat the ol’ torture rack there for a good night’s sleep.”

He had a point. So Jared pulled a face at him.

Jensen just laughed.

“You are… not wrong,” Jared admitted eventually. “But I didn’t want to impose.” _Or do something inappropriate, however inadvertently_.

“It’s _your bed,_ ” Jensen pressed. “And that better be the last time I have to say it. If anybody’s imposing, it’s me.”

“I don’t mind,” Jared said honestly. His back might, but he doesn’t. He’d rather sleep the rest of his days in that chair than wake up to Jensen hating him.

To distract himself, he stood. “Are you hungry?”

“I could probably eat an entire goat, not just the broth of one,” Jensen said.

And that’s how Jared wound up roasting two whole shanks over the fire, turning them on his tiny spit until they dripped. The raw hunger on Jensen’s face took Jared by surprise, as did the moan the man let out when he tasted his meal.

“That is the best thing I've ever had in my mouth,” he said around his next bite.

Jared had to clench his jaw to keep from answering with anything other than, “Thank you?”

With a grin, Jensen nods. “You are very, very welcome.”

His teeth flashed white when he tore off another strip. Jared despaired of his inability to keep from watching, even out of the corner of his eye. _You’ve got it bad,_ he chastised himself. _This is bad. Very bad. And embarrassing…_

It warred within him, the desire to slice the tension and see what happened, and the selfish supposition that Jensen would be better off leaving as soon as he was able. He should leave Jared and his burgeoning crush behind. He should.

Jared would tell himself that until he believed it.

They finished dinner, and Jensen made his way back to the bed, already drowsy. But he was moving with more ease than when he’d headed to the table in the first place. Internal conflict aside, Jared was glad to see him doing so much better.

He busied himself with clearing away the remains of their meal while Jensen ponderously arranged himself beneath the blankets.

“C’mon,” he said, halfway muddled by the blankets.

Jared glanced over at him, dishes in hand.

“Put those down, and c’mere.”

 _Oh._ Jensen really was going to insist.

Trying not to seem too eager, Jared scraped the scraps from the plates into his compost canister. He’d take care of it when the door was clear. Jensen’s bright eyes regarded him from the shadow of the corner.

Jared made his way over, and the man scooted further back toward the wall. “C’mon,” Jensen said again, almost cajoling. “There’s room.”

 _Not much room,_ Jared thought, despairing, but that didn’t stop him from sliding carefully under the covers.

It put their faces far too close together. But Jensen didn’t seem to mind. He already looked like he was falling asleep as they lay there, eyelids opening less and less each time he blinked.

“Tell me about your book,” he said.

So Jared did. It was the story of a boy who, against all odds, survived in a wilderness much like this one, armed with only a hatchet. Jared was not a fast reader, but the book was easy to digest. The author painted grand portraits of the scenery and the boy’s struggles in beautifully plain language. Jared was glad he had found it.

Toward the end of his rambling explanation, he suddenly noticed Jensen was fast asleep. The man’s long lashes lay across his freckled cheeks, fluttering slightly as he dreamed. As beautiful an image as any scenery, any sunset Jared had watched from his peak. Things that had once taken Jared’s breath away seemed to pale in comparison, memories no match for this natural art.

Lost in thoughts with little meaning beyond abstraction and self-doubt, Jared studied Jensen’s face for a long while before he, too, slept.


	9. Chapter 9

“All right. Let me see this snow drift.”

Jensen was feeling well enough to move about without leaning on the furniture, but as a result, he was starting to feel cooped up in the cave. No offense meant to Jared, of course, who’d been a gracious and entertaining host. In fact, he’d been downright affable. Jensen never would have expected there were once _actual yetis_ living on Mt. Kripke, let alone one _still living there_ who was just as friendly if not more so than most humans Jensen had met.

And how ridiculous was that?

He couldn’t overlook what Jared was, and yet—he could. He did. They had fun together, no two ways. Jensen hadn’t laughed that much with anyone in so long a time it made him cringe inside. He didn’t see Jared as a yeti, or whatever. He saw him as a person.

When he looked Jared full in the face, lately, he found himself ignoring the hair, paying more attention to the expressiveness of Jared’s eyes, the vibrant colors brought out by the shifting lantern light, and the way the skin beneath Jared’s cheeklocks blushed sometimes. It was… There had to be a better word than adorable, but Jensen couldn’t think of one.

On the other hand, Jensen knew his family had to be worried sick. With no way to contact them, his phone lost with his pack in the tumult of snow, they probably thought he was dead by now; but with no body to claim, there was always hope.

He wondered, with a small surge of pride, if the search parties had made it as far up the mountain as he had.

Jared ushered him toward the door. “It seems to be packed down enough, but without much material to brace it, we really only have one shot.”

Jensen had never tried digging a tunnel in real life before, but he’d done it in a sandbox video game, and it was difficult. It had been hard to know which direction to take, and the structure definitely needed constant support. Glancing back into the cave, he frowned at the sparse furnishings. Even stripping every piece down to kindling wouldn’t get them out of here.

They’d just have to wing it.

He was prepared for a chill closer to the door, but he was still shivering far sooner than he was comfortable admitting. Rubbing his hands together, he inspected every inch of the door frame, testing sections of snow. It was packed down pretty hard.

Shoving aside fatalistic thoughts of what that meant for how long they’d be digging, Jensen cast a glance back and motioned for one of the barrels, which Jared brought forward with a nod. Jensen stuck his fingers into the snow, pulled out a handful, and dropped it into the bucket. By the time he was free of it, his fingers were already red.

Holding them up, he asked ruefully, “I don’t suppose you have any gloves?”

With a grimace, Jared shook his head. “I’ve never needed them,” he said, apologetic. “If you want, I can just dig where you tell me to?”

“I can pull my own weight,” Jensen retorted, but was just then wracked with a shiver so intense it doubled him over.

Jared caught him.

“I’ll be very careful,” he said, his breath a puff of blessed warmth on Jensen’s ear and neck.

Jensen shivered again. Nodding vigorously, he helped Jared set him back upright.

“I trust you.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the two of them halted in their tracks, and for one eternal moment simply stared at one another. Jensen had never felt more sure of anything in his life—not when he vowed to climb mountains, nor any other conviction.

Jared’s startled eyes reflected the lamplight, and Jensen got lost in there, in metaphors for loyalty and strength, so much so that when Jared colored beneath his hair and glanced away, Jensen awoke as though from a dream. How much time had passed?

He didn’t know, and like so much lately, found he didn’t care. But he needed to get a grip. As soon as they broke free from Mother Nature’s chokehold, Jensen would be out of Jared’s life forever.

It shouldn’t be difficult to convince himself that’s how it ought to be.

 

* * *

 

After what felt like hours into their foray, the tunnel was still woefully shallow. Jensen was wrapped in every spare bit of cloth Jared owned. He paced to keep the shivers at bay and out of his voice, and talked to Jared to distract himself.

Jared, clearly upset, shoveled snow so quickly his bleached-white limbs were a blur. He’d taken to melting it over the fire in the biggest cauldron Jensen had ever seen, saying he could always dump it into the underground spring. They needed the space. There was more snow than barrels, and more tunnel to dig than warmth to give. The fire was struggling to both melt snow and heat the cave no matter what Jared tossed on it.

“You ever seen a palm tree?” Jensen rattled on, striding back and forth before the fire. “Weird, spiky-lookin’ things juttin’ straight up outta the ground. Bark on ‘em like a pineapple—You ever seen a pineapple?”

“No,” Jared grunted, shoveling. “Not a whole one. But I’ve eaten some. It’s very tangy.”

“Eats you while you eat it, you know that? I read that once—they’ll limit you drinkin’ the juice at bars, just like the liquor, ‘cos there’s this enzyme in it that breaks down meat. It’s how they use it in cooking. But the pineapple is literally eating you back.” Jensen laughed, a short raw bark. “If I ever wanted proof that God’s a crazy bastard...”

“You don’t believe in a benevolent creator?” Jared hauled a barrel over to the fire, checked the contents of the cauldron, and began unhooking it from its stand. “Many visitors here seem to. They sing songs, pray, just like we do, only they seem to worship the sky instead of the earth.”

“They think God lives up there,” Jensen said, gesturing roundly at the ceiling. “In Heaven.”

“What do you think?”

“Man, I don’t know. There’s so much wrong with the world. Doesn’t seem right, there bein’ an intelligent being up there just watching it all, y’know? But on the other hand,” he continued, staring into the flames long after Jared had wrestled the cauldron from them, “a multiverse without intelligence at the helm could be much, much worse.”

Having poured all the water into an empty barrel, Jared paused in the act of setting the cauldron back on its hook. “Why is that?”

Distracted, Jensen wrenches his gaze from Jared’s bicep, bulging from the strain. “Huh? Oh. ‘Cos that’d mean all of this is happening at random and there’s no salvation from it, that’s kinda… depressing.”

A bleak outlook indeed. Which was why Jensen usually tried not to think about it.

“My people, we believe in the mountain,” Jared said, setting the cauldron carefully into place. As usual, when he talked about his family, his voice grew soft and sad. Jensen had never wanted so badly to hold someone. “Alacha’lula protects us, guides us, provides us nourishment so that we, in turn, may watch her back.”

“That’s…” Jensen can’t help huffing out a laugh. “That’s way simpler. I think I might prefer it.”

“It is easier to believe in simple things, I think.”

“Yeah…” Squinting into the fire, suddenly discontent, Jensen chews the inside of his lip. The subject of religion is anything but simple—though people like to reduce it to parables and adages, like that negates the intricacies and double-talk.

Oh well. It’s usually better to steer clear of that topic altogether. That, and politics.

Jared, meanwhile, hauled the water off like a boss, and just as quickly returned to digging, flashes of white amid the brown of the rest of him and the muddy shadows. Jensen continued to occupy himself with the fire, though this time it was forced. He couldn’t get caught staring. He didn’t even think it would be appropriate to ask Jared what he was into— _he’s a yeti, for crying out loud,_ grumbled his prudish side—but man, did Jensen want to know.

There was something about watching Jared fully apply himself to the strenuous task that stirred Jensen more acutely than he had been in a long time. Oh, he’d had boyfriends; recently, one who liked it when Jensen spanked him, and another before that who used toys really, really well. But something about being trapped in a cave with Jared was making Jensen hotter than the fever ever could have.

Despite the chill, he was sweating as he dug, hair soaking and sticking to bulging muscles no longer just hinted at beneath his worn clothes. The guy was stacked, even more so than Jensen had noticed, and now that it wouldn’t behoove him to _keep_ noticing, he couldn’t help himself. He wondered, unbidden, what it would be like to be pressed into Jared’s handmade mattress by all that muscle—when he shook his head, trying to relieve himself of the image before his interest made itself visibly known, his brain took it upon itself to wonder what it might be like for Jared to press him roughly up against the wall instead.

 _Down, boy,_ Jensen thought, somewhat wildly.

He imagined Jared’s stare boring into his while Jared fucked him. Jared’s hands all over him; like they had been in the beginning, but far less clinical.

Jared’s shoulders and back heaving like they were right then, but from sexual exertion rather than labor.

Shaking his head violently, Jensen cast about for something else to focus on and wound up studying the fire. The flames might blind him, and then he could breathe normally again.

“Jensen.” Jared’s voice was muffled. Glancing back to the doorway, Jensen was surprised to see very little of Jared still remained within his home. He’d made a ton of progress.

Jensen was proud of him, then.

“What’s up?”

“Could you grab the shovel behind you and keep filling the barrels? I’m not sure it would be wise for me to back in and out of this. I don’t want to melt it any deeper than it already is if we're trying to head upward.”

“Sure!” Jensen cast about for the shovel, finding it propped up against the wall. He set to scraping it along the floor. Even if his hands couldn’t take the constant chill, this he could do. He was pleased to be part of the process, rather than just running his mouth. Even if having the tunnel meant he’d be that much closer to returning home.

That much closer to having to decide whether or not he wanted to leave Jared forever—knowing he probably had to—or continue hiking to the same spot every time, knowing eventually someone might notice. Knowing he’d be putting Jared in danger.

Or if, before he left, he wanted to confess these wildly inappropriate burgeoning feelings he kept trying to shove down.

Jensen lost track of time until the shovel scraped and nothing slid into it. He looked up. Jared had stopped digging.

“Y’alright?” he asked, trying not to sound anxious.

“I’ve run into something,” Jared said, strained. He sounded like he was trying to shove at the something and failing. “I might have to go arou—”

With a hollow thump, a crash, and a sickening slide, Jared lost his footing and slid back down the tunnel backward. He wound up back through his doorway, shaking his head, a wash of snow tumbling after him. Jensen tossed the shovel aside, crouching, grabbing Jared’s chin to inspect his face.

The hair there had begun to bleach when, Jensen assumed, he’d faceplanted during the fall. White limned his striking cheekbones, streaks of it reaching haphazardly down to his beard. But the most striking change, Jensen wasn’t sure he saw at all.

Just before Jared blinked, Jensen thought he caught a glimpse of icy blue in Jared’s irises.

He wondered if, when transformed completely, Jared really would look like an abominable snowman.

Jared laughed. “I’m all right.” His smile was fond, if a small flicker, before he continued seriously, “But I think that was a boulder. We might have to dig around it.”

“Did it shift?” Jensen peered up the tunnel, barely illuminated by the lanterns. “Or was all that noise you?”

“To be fair, I don’t fall quietly.” But Jared had turned, and he too was squinting up through his handiwork. His arms were already tawny again, the last of the white fading from his hands.

Slowly, he stood, creeping toward the doorway. He stuck his head in the tunnel.

“We’ve lost a bit of progress,” he said, withdrawing, “but not too much.”

Jensen hovered protectively as Jared ventured back up the tunnel. He tried to keep from staring at Jared’s ass in those worn cargo shorts he wore, but failed miserably. To be fair, it was a very nice ass: toned, with substance to it. Jensen wondered—despairing at his insufferable imagination—what it would feel like in his hands.

Perpetually barefoot, with callouses that looked rock-hard, Jared moved with a lithe grace that belied the strength with which he now continued to dig. Those feet were all that Jensen could see for a while, even after the ass disappeared up the tunnel, Jared’s grunts echoing down with the handfuls of snow.

“Almost—” echoed down through the tunnel, “there—”

A scrape, a yelp, and too much snow tumbled down around Jared, sealing his legs in powdery white, only his toes visible. The hair was bleaching white rapidly as he kicked, and Jensen risked a foot to the face when he dove forward, digging frantically. He didn’t care how cold it was, how fragile his human fingers.

Inch by precious inch he unearthed a wriggling Jared, who by the time they got him free was almost entirely white, his skin translucent, blue veins visible on the undersides of his wrists when he finally popped free and spun around.

And Jensen had been right. Jared’s eyes, like the rest of him, had transformed.

They glittered, twin blue diamonds in the depths of winter.

“We have a problem,” he said, so cold his hair wasn’t fading back to brown, his voice the only familiar thing about him.

Jensen was having trouble not staring.

“We, uh…” He shook his head a little. “We do?”

Jared nodded, grim. “It wasn’t just snow that fell. The rock got wedged, too. It slid down after me.”

They both looked at the tunnel’s mouth, now choked with white.

Drawing a deep breath, Jensen let it out in a gust, ignoring the opaque steam of it. “Well,” he said, aiming for bolstering, “we’ll just have to keep digging, right?” He looked around, searching for something to wrap his hands in. “Do you have any, I dunno, dish towels? Old rags?”

“Jensen…”

“I want to help,” he said, turning back to Jared, who had darkened to a tawny blond and looked concerned. His eyes were hazel once more.

“We need to close the door and try again after we get the place heated again.”

“But—”

“Jensen,” Jared said gently. “You’re shivering.”

Blinking, Jensen was about to argue when his teeth began to chatter. He was _freezing_. And he hadn’t even noticed.

“Y-you might have a-a point-t-t,” he said through the castanets in his mouth.

“Go sit next to the fire.” Jared pointed, now practically back to his normal dark brown, giving Jensen a stern look that didn’t abate until Jensen was close to the flames.

His back beginning to warm almost immediately, Jensen watched Jared probe at the snow inward from the edges of the doorway. He wasn’t pressing in very far, his hands only disappearing halfway, and Jensen didn’t understand why until Jared quickly stood and reached for the door close mechanism.

He pressed it. Nothing happened.

“Didn’t think so,” he muttered. Grabbing the edge of the door, he guided it firmly closed.

Or would have, if it had moved.

Jensen watched him rock back in shock. Then grip the edge and try again, obviously pulling harder this time. Still nothing.

Anxiety began to birth prickling waves of spiders in Jensen’s chest.

He watched, rotating parts of his back away from the flames as they became too hot. Jared felt all along the seam where Jensen assumed the clever rock hinges were set, turning his knuckles to the door to pry at something far too close to the seam. He brushed the snow from it, uncovering inch by inch of stone, a different color and texture than that of the door.

Jared tugged at it. The boulder—Jensen assumed it was the one that had been blocking the tunnel’s progress—didn’t budge. Jared tried pushing it, first tentatively and then putting his back into it. Nothing.

He tried tugging the door shut again, but Jensen was already resigned to the futility of that. His heart sank for what felt like eons before Jared finally turned to him, the hair on his hands darkening once more.

“It’s stuck.”


	10. Chapter 10

Jared had never felt like more of a failure than he did now, facing Jensen, who stood backlit by the flames. His expression wasn’t readable by this light, but Jared’s shame filled it in: disappointment, fear, anger, all directed at the one of the two of them who should have been able to get the damn door shut.

“I’m so sorry,” he began, but Jensen was already heading toward him, reaching out.

Unable to help his initial flinch, Jared stared too long at the extended hand. He glanced back up at Jensen, the man’s eyes and expression more visible now. They were hard, resigned, but it wasn’t directed at him.

For him, Jensen looked kind.

“Come on,” he said, beckoning a little with his fingertips until Jared reached out and took the hand, only slightly warmer than his own.

Jensen led him over to the fire.

Reaching for a small log, Jared carefully placed it atop the smoldering wrecks of previous ones, crouching there so he could watch the flames taste it. Jensen joined him. He felt so small there beside Jared. So fragile. Jared had never noticed his own bulk the way he did now that Jensen was around. His home was made for his people; the furniture, fireplace, all of it sized for his hands and frame. The juxtaposition of Jensen here as opposed to out in the wilderness was striking.

Next to him, Jared felt enormous. Bumbling. Next to his failure as well… downright useless. It was all so overwhelming. So raw and new. It had been so long since the last time he affected a life like this, negative and irreparable.

“We wasted a lot of heat on that endeavor,” he said to the fire, mourning the truth of it. “There’s plenty of wood stacked in the back, but you’ll have to sleep right next to the fire. It’s going to get very, very cold in here.” _I can handle it,_ he didn’t add aloud. _I’m not sure you can._

“Has this ever happened to you before?”

Jared shook his head. “There’s a first time for everything, right?” He tried to grin over at Jensen and felt how wan it was. He let it slip away. There was no point in trying to make light of the situation. He knew as well as Jensen that their safety was tenuous. Jared may have been born in sync with the mountain, may have grown up couched in her foothills and playing in her crevices… but she could, and might, still bury him.

“You stay here,” he continued. “I might have something in storage that we can put over the hole.”

It wasn’t a doorway anymore. Nothing near as useful.

Rummaging quickly, Jared found not only more stout logs, but a thick old tarpaulin he’d discovered on the mountain years ago. He wasn’t sure how he’d be able to rig it up around the doorway, seeing as the gentle slope of his wall had no nails or places to tuck the edges. But they’d figure something out. They had to.

He could tell Jensen was succumbing to the chill.

And when he hurried back to the main cave, he found the man huddled dangerously close to the fireplace. The flames licked hungrily out at his clothes mere inches away.

“Be careful,” Jared said as he loaded the wood bin.

Jensen just nodded absently. He didn’t move.

 

* * *

 

No matter how Jared tried to drape it, the tarp wouldn’t stay against the doorway. He thought, somewhat desperately, about mixing up a sticky mess of sap, or pitch, anything. But he wasn’t sure he had anything like that. He’d never had to affix anything to the walls before. His gran’s mirror was the only thing that hung on any one of them, and it was suspended from a thick metal spike driven into the rock long ago by someone larger and stronger than he.

Despair began to set in. He was running out of time. Cold had thoroughly permeated the cave, and the fire wasn’t even burning as strongly anymore, not even with fresh fuel. As a human, smooth-skinned and hairless, Jensen didn’t have much time. Not from the perspective of the mountain, whose freeze was endless and whose mercy simply didn’t exist no matter how anyone might beseech it.

Frustrated, Jared dropped the tarp and pulled at various clumps of his hair.

“Hey,” Jensen said, stirring, no doubt noticing his distress.

Jared shook his head, hair slapping his ears as it swung. “It’s my fault,” he said. “I should have gone further around when I ran into the boulder in the first place.”

“Jared, you were digging a tunnel by hand through about a mile of snow,” Jensen said. He sounded too calm, by Jared’s estimation. “I don’t see how you could have known.”

“I should have. I’ve lived up here my whole life—”

“Yeah, and I’ve lived in the same city _my_ whole life,” the man argued. “Doesn’t mean I can anticipate every car wreck—”

“It’s not the same,” Jared mumbled.

“—besides, you’ve had to do this before, right?”

Jared cast a despondent look at the useless door. “Never to this extent.” _And never with someone besides myself to keep alive. You don’t know how cold I’ve been. How much colder I can get. I know you humans, your weaknesses… I’ve seen too many of you die while I survived._

The warmth of a hand on his bicep has him looking up, startled, to find Jensen much closer than he was before.

“I don’t blame you,” he said—too kindly, Jared thought, still blaming himself. “So you shouldn’t, either.”

He was so close. Jared had a perfect view of his face, now free of lines, jaw slack and lips parted. He looked so _young,_  so in need of protection Jared wasn’t sure he could provide.

Heat built within Jared the longer they stared at one another, gazes flicking over faces, studying each other. Drinking each other in. The firelight still muddied the gorgeous green of Jensen’s eyes, but Jared was even more entranced by them now as he had been when he—when he’d shared the bed with—

A stirring down below sent a thrill of shock and shame through Jared, but he ignored it. He glanced down at Jensen’s lips instead.

What might it be like, to kiss him?

Jared wasn’t sure how it was done. Oh, sure, he’d seen it. Many of the hikers who made it as high as his hunting grounds took the opportunities provided by the remote location. A few had gone much further than kissing, but embarrassment had led Jared to run away and leave them in privacy.

Once, he almost had a book he was sure would have been educational, but the rain had ruined it. He had only his imagination, and right now, his imagination was telling him that kissing Jensen would be the best experience of his life.

It didn’t look like Jensen disagreed. Unless it was a trick of the light, Jared could see a flush spreading beneath the man’s freckles. A flash of pink tongue wet those lips. Jared’s neck cramped; he wanted so badly to give in to his desires and taste them.

But he didn’t want to ruin what might be the only friendship he’d ever have.

Jensen seemed to notice where his hand was for the first time, snatching it away. Jared felt its loss, as well as what he assumed was Jensen’s reticence to touch him at all. He glanced to the floor. How stupid, to think someone like that would want anything romantic to do with someone like him. They weren’t even of the same species.

An ancient dressing-down floated out from the recesses of his memory:

_“No matter how akin you may feel to them, they are not your people.”_

But his people were long gone...

“Anyway,” Jensen said, his voice rough, splitting the tension like an axe to a log. “It doesn’t matter who blames who for what.” He eyed the door.

Jared followed his gaze. He was right. The temperature was still dropping steadily.

Bending, Jensen picked up the edge of the tarp, inspecting it. There were metal grommets along the sides, but of course, nothing to hook them on. A frown deepened the longer he ran it through his hands. It made lines stand out on his forehead.

There was no way for Jared to discern how old Jensen was. Humans all looked more or less the same to him, despite clear variances in height and dress, and length of the hair at grew only on their heads. He would guess Jensen was younger than him, if only because according to legend, his people lived longer than they did.

He wasn’t sure if it would be rude to ask. So he wouldn’t. Maybe… well, there was no use in thinking about ‘someday,’ but even so. Someday, Jensen might tell him.

“Do you have any duct tape?” the man said, interrupting Jared’s musing.

He arched a brow. “Duck… what?”

Jensen snorted. “It’s really strong gray sticky stuff people use to hold things together. Comes in a roll, pulls off with a weird noise?”

“Oh!” Turning, he beckoned Jensen to the cavern. “It’s colder back here, but moving will help you stay warmer. And you can tell me if you see the… duct?” He emphasized the T. Jensen nodded. “Tape.”

 

* * *

 

When they emerged from the winding switchback hallway, the cavern felt even colder than it had earlier. Possibly because Jared was worried about Jensen’s fragility, despite the determined look on the man’s face and the color that returned to his cheeks the more he moved about. The puff of his breath was whiter, too.

When they emerged into the wider area, Jared watched from the corner of his eye as Jensen took in the mess. It was organized by Jared’s standards, meaning he knew where everything was, and since he’d never needed to bring anyone else back there… He felt his cheeks burning with shame beneath his locks.

But when Jensen turned to him, he looked… fascinated?

“How much stuff do you have down here? Damn,” he said. “How _old_ is some of this? Look at _this!”_ In delight, he ran his hand over an ancient toy airplane the size of his torso. His hand barely came away dusty. Jared felt a small surge of pride amid his general embarrassment.

Leading the way, he headed for the area where he’d toss things that looked usable, if foreign. Jensen trailed along behind, drinking everything in, exclaiming every so often over pieces that caught his eye.

“Is that an _augur?_ ” he exclaimed over a heavy, spiral-shaped piece of equipment Jared had been equally baffled about, but for different reasons. “What were they doing with _that?_ ”

“Why would someone bring a blow-up palm tree up a mountain?”

“Wow, you have enough grill grates to do steaks for a whole football team.”

“Oh my god, an actual Victrola!” Jared turned, watching Jensen scurry over to it and the collection of flat round black shapes protected by paper, which Jared had found with it when he first took stock of this place.

Jensen turned to him, one of them in his hands, eyes shining. “Do you know what this is?”

“You know I don’t,” Jared said, chuckling.

“Just you wait.” Jensen slid one of the circular pieces from its holder, and carefully lifted a piece of the mechanism. He placed the disc with care, placed the point—”This is called a needle,” he explained—atop the disc, “it goes here, like this, and then you—” He began to turn the crank on the side.

Jared had lifted the needle, turned the crank, but never with one of the discs on it. He jumped a foot when from the ancient fluted horn atop it floated _music._

Oh, he knew of music. His people had their own, and he still sang some of the songs to himself when he was cleaning or feeling lonely. Humans had devices which played it, ranging all shapes and sizes just like the humans themselves. Jared had heard such a variety of tunes and beats floating up from the footpaths.

This device, though, had belonged to his gran. She never said where she got it. As Jared grew older, wiser, he inferred that she had found it like he’d found most of the things stashed away back here: on the mountain. But she had never known what it was for, so neither had he. They’d both agreed the visual aesthetic of it was enough.

The music conjured from it was sweet, a melancholy tune, played with instruments Jared had heard but rarely from other sources. Never like this. Never so immediate, so visceral, tugging at his heart the way Jensen’s expression did when he left the record spinning and ambled over to where Jared stood frozen in his tracks.

“This is classical music,” he said softly. He stood very near, watching Jared listen. Jared didn’t want to make a scene, but as the song continued to play, he found himself tearing up. It was just so beautiful.

A sob escaped him before he could help it.

He swallowed hastily, swiping at his eyes, tears getting lost in his hair. Far from looking surprised, however, Jensen just kept gazing up at him with a small, wistful smile.

“Yeah,” he said, looking away again, his voice oddly thick. “It gets me too.”

Then he turned, reaching for Jared’s left hand at the same time his own found Jared’s right shoulder.

“And this,” he said, “is dancing.”

He pulled Jared close to him and began to shuffle sideways, making a slow circle, swaying his hips. Jared belatedly mimicked the movements, once again feeling cumbersome so close to the human. He concentrated so hard on not stepping on Jensen as they moved that he almost missed the way Jensen’s eyes were sparkling.

“You’re doing fine,” Jensen said, low and amuse, but less a tease. Far more intimate.

Jared’s eyes found Jensen’s face again, but by then the smile had turned mischievous. “I don’t really know how to dance, anyway,” the man admitted, “beyond this circular swaying stuff.”

“It’s more dancing than I’ve ever done,” Jared said.

The song came to a close. They continued to move, the moment hanging in the silence, time stretching into eternity. Jensen was still looking up at him. Jared was ensnared, struck by a beauty more poignant than the first glint of sunlight on new-fallen snow, more fleeting than spring, more… heart-wrenching, yet desirable, than anything Jared had known.

He thought again of kissing, and as if on cue, Jensen’s lips parted.

They looked so soft.

But then the next song began, a lively one. It was lovely by its own right but ruined the mood of the first. With reluctance, Jared dropped Jensen’s hand. He probably only imagined that it lingered.

He missed it as soon as it was gone.


	11. Chapter 11

_Don’t be an idiot,_ Jensen kept telling himself.

It was getting more and more difficult the longer he was in Jared's company.

 _I can’t believe you made him dance with you,_ he scoffed at himself, staunchly ignoring the fact that no one had made anyone do anything, and that Jared had seemed to enjoy it. _Why’d you even think he’d want to?_

Though he couldn’t have been imagining the look on Jared’s face, that raw expression when he heard the music—the way it hadn't sealed up a bit when he looked at Jensen.

The way he’d glanced at Jensen’s mouth.

 _Idiot!_ Jensen shook his head. _He doesn’t want to kiss you. He probably just thinks your lips are huge like everybody else._ Jensen pushed some PVC pipe aside too hard, some of the impetus stemming from shoving aside bad memories. _He probably can’t wait to get you out of his space._

Jared had led him to what he called his ‘odds-and-ends bins.’ They were stuffed full of all kinds of materials; nails, hinges, a disemboweled tape measure. If duct tape was anywhere in Jared’s collection, it was probably in here. Jensen had described the stuff as best he could so Jared could look elsewhere, so Jensen had time to chastise himself internally without worrying about what was showing on his face.

 _You’ve got to get this crush under control._ There was a roll of masking tape, but that wouldn’t work. _You only feel this way because it’s a life-or-death situation in close quarters. And this isn’t the movies. Jared doesn’t_ need _you._

Even if Jensen did wonder if the… yeti, wow; he hadn’t been thinking of Jared as anything other than just Jared for a while. It felt weird to think of him as ‘the’ anything. Despite being the most hirsute dude Jensen had ever met, Jared was just… well, Jared.

And Jensen wondered if he was lonely.

Then again, the way Jared had spoken so simply of his exile made Jensen think that maybe he liked it that way. Part of Jensen, a part he kept trying to silence, hoped that wasn’t the case. That Jared was just shy, unused to any attention at all. That maybe now that he was paid some, found he liked it… liked Jensen.

His seeking fingers found a rough ring of something with sticky edges near the bottom of the bin he was digging in, and he hauled it to the top with a cry of triumph.

“Found some!”

“Oh, good!” called Jared from somewhere behind him.

Jensen turned toward the sound in time to see Jared emerging, a glad bright grin parting his beard. Holding up the battered roll, wiggling it back and forth in time with his eyebrows, Jensen fought to keep his heart rate down.

“What does it do?” Jared asked, peering at it.

In response, Jensen picked at the end and pulled some free with enough force to produce the unique sound it made. Jared’s eyes went wide.

“Here, touch it,” Jensen said, swallowing the urge to laugh at the double entendre.

Jared did, blinking when his fingers stuck, then stuck and unstuck them a few more times until some of his hair snagged on it and pulled free.

“Ow!” He rubbed at the spot.

Jensen did laugh then, sympathetically. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s see if it’ll work.”

 

* * *

 

The fire, stubbornly holding its own, had kept the front room more or less the same temperature as the back. Jensen still shivered hard when he got closer to the door. They hurried to grab the tarp and hoist it up, and Jensen set about ripping up the duct tape. He needed to be careful not to waste any. There was barely half the roll left.

He noticed, after a while, that he and Jared were both very carefully avoiding looking at each other. Jensen wasn’t sure what to make of that, but it made way for more anxiety spiders.  

 _I went too far with the dancing,_ he thought. _Shit._

Not everybody wants to be romanced— _Not like that’s what I was doing_ , he added hastily, fooling no one.

Not everybody wants spontaneity, especially not from the stranger spontaneously taking up space in their previously uncluttered solitary lifestyle. And regardless of what Jensen saw, or thought he saw when he looked into Jared’s eyes… not everybody wanted a relationship. With him or anyone else.

 _It doesn't have to be a relationship,_ his dick piped up. Jensen resisted the urge to punch it. A one-night stand was never a good idea when you were dependant upon the other person for survival.

 _Besides, wouldn't you figure he's attracted to his own kind? You're all hairless and teeny compared to him._ Well, mostly hairless. His beard, now the fullest he’d grown it since he started caring about his appearance again, kind of itched.  _You're p_ _robably the least sexy thing he's ever seen._

Even though… Jensen glanced over again, just in time to catch Jared turning away, hair swishing with the speed of it. A flurry of hope and bewilderment rose up within Jensen so quickly he almost coughed.

 _Don't be stupid_ , he told himself again.

Once the tarp was hanging, Jensen went back around with more pieces of precious tape, sealing up gaps and providing support. It felt warmer in the room already. The tarp itself was old and dirty, thick like they hadn’t been made in ages, and it was doing the trick.

Finally, they both stood back to admire their handiwork. Jensen turned to Jared, something celebratory on the tip of his tongue, only to find Jared staring over at the bed. Jensen's budding grin died.

Closing his jaw with a snap, he wandered over to the fire, gazing into the flickering depths and wondering how he got himself into a mess like this. With someone he owed his life to, no less.

A sudden loud scraping noise had him jumping out of his skin. He whirled to see Jared dragging the bed away from the wall.

“What’re you doing?” he asked, too loud. His heart was pounding. It began from adrenaline, but as Jared continued to pull, muscles bunching, the poor thing refused to slow down. Couldn’t. It was like watching a Sports Illustrated model covered in cornsilk move a piano.

Jensen was less focused on making accurate metaphors than he was on how much blood was flowing down to his very interested cock.

Maybe the lack of oxygen getting to his brain was the culprit. He certainly couldn't breathe deeply enough. When one of the legs hung on the uneven floor and Jared grunted at the sudden jolt, Jensen nearly gasped aloud.

“It’s not going to be much warmer in here, even with the tarp,” Jared said over his shoulder.

 _He's pulling the bed in front of the fire, of course_. Jensen could smack himself upside the head for being so distracted and dense, but settled for scrambling out of the way.

“We should try to conserve as much heat as possible.”

 _We._ Oh man, they were still sharing a bed. Jensen's erection _really_ took an interest in that, to Jensen's increasing despair.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he held the cloth out while somewhat desperately tucking far to the left. Trying to ignore the touches. Failing to keep from imagining it was a desperate grope from Jared instead. His imagination took that and ran with it: Jared would slam him up against the wall, palming him with those incredible hands, hair and muscle holding every inch of him captive—

Maybe he should sleep in the chair.

Torn, he watched Jared manhandle the enormous rough-hewn frame into place, watched him carefully consider how close he could get it to the fireplace without putting the quilt in danger. All of his movements were so lithe. Graceful.

And Jensen was sure they belied the way he moved overtop the mountain, where he surely ran faster than anything anyone had ever seen. He probably climbed the sheerest rock faces effortlessly, hand over hand. He probably used every single one of those bunching muscles.

Jensen traced the lines of them for the umpteenth time, unable to look away.

 _I am so screwed,_ he groaned to himself. Then rolled his eyes when his dick pulsed against his hand. _Not like that. Idiot._

 

* * *

 

With the bed in the way, it was difficult to make dinner, but Jared shoved it a foot or so farther away and they managed. It was much harder for Jensen to keep from ogling Jared's ass every time he was the one clambering over to stir or add ingredients. And when it was his turn to spoon out his own bowl, he could swear he felt Jared's eyes on him too.

They sat atop the quilt in silence and ate as carefully as they could. When Jared went for seconds, he had to contort himself awkwardly to reach the cauldron again.

“We didn't think that one through,” Jensen said with a weak chuckle.

“This is not the first time I've sat on my bed to eat. Although, granted, nowhere this close to the fire,” Jared said, blowing on his next spoonful, “and it's definitely the first time I've _shared_ food here.”

Jensen glanced up and met Jared’s sparkling gaze. They shared a quiet laugh, but didn't look away afterward. Maybe it was a trick of the firelight, but Jensen would have sworn the look in Jared's eyes began to shift toward a smolder.

 _I know something else we could share here,_ he thought, and it looked as though Jared was thinking the same thing.

“Jared—”

Leaning forward, not sure why, Jensen was so focused on his host that he forgot there was a bowl of soup in his lap. It sloshed, warmth seeping through his pant leg

“Oh, shit,” he exclaimed in dismay.

“Here, let me—” Jared began, shifting forward, but once again his limbs filled the limited space in awkward ways. He overbalanced, stuck out a leg to correct, and kicked the cauldron over.

With an enormous splash, the cave plunged into darkness.

“Oh, _shit,_ ” Jensen breathed, Jared swearing loud and long over that in his native tongue. The cauldron thunked to the ground and Jensen felt it up through the bedposts.

“You're _kidding me,_ ” Jared roared in English.

“It’s okay—”

“It's _not,_ ” he cried, a huge warm shape rustling in the dark. Jensen hears scraping in the fireplace, something slopping on the floor. “If I can't get this fire going again, the cave is going to freeze. I can’t close the damn—what do you call it—flue!” His voice contorted with emotion and the ways he was bending. “It's a filter system! It never needed to be closed!”

“Hey,” Jensen said, going for soothing. It was hard to achieve, though, because a fierce series of shudders was beginning to rock his core. The temperature had already plummeted.

Jared ignored him, or didn't hear him. “And—and if I can’t keep it warm in here, y-you can't hibernate, Jensen, you're going to—”

“Hey!” Jensen shouted.

All movement ceased.

“Nobody's gonna die, alright? We can fix this.” The chill was dancing across his exposed skin, wriggling beneath his sleeves and collar, but he ignored it. _Focus on Jared._ “What do you want me to grab to mop it up with?”

Jared shifted. “Can you see at all?” he asked drily.

“Uh—”

“Stay here.” Jared invaded his space out of nowhere to climb over the bed, his spicy scent on several of Jensen's breaths, closer than that of the cooling mess. “Get under the quilt. Conserve your body heat. I’ll be back.”

He was terse, upset, but at least he'd snapped to and stopped freaking out. Jensen counted it as a win. He found the edge of the quilt and burrowed beneath it, trying to breathe quieter as his ears strained to place Jared within the pitch-black cave. He had to clench his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. Every move he made, even to inhale and exhale, was too loud. It got in the way.

Each passing moment his straining ears couldn’t detect Jared moving around out there seemed to stretch into a terrible eternity. What if he left?

 _Shut up,_ Jensen told that thought.

What if, against all odds, Jared decided Jensen wasn’t worth the effort?

_Shut up!_

Sometimes, Jensen didn’t even think Jensen was worth the effort, and now was steadily becoming no exception. He’d leave him. He’s useless. What could he possibly offer Jared in this situation besides burden and worry, and an awkward, inappropriate bo—

It was a nasty shock when Jared clambered back over the bed.

Heart slamming against his ribs, Jensen curled into a ball beneath the quilt and shivered. Now that he wasn’t trying to stay quiet, he propelled his exhaled breath under there, willing the heated carbon dioxide to saturate the cloth and warm him up. He’d never take a fire for granted again.

Nor Jared’s presence. Not like he had been, at all, but _damn,_ he sneered at himself. _Was that really all it took to doubt him? How weak are you?_

Objectively, Jensen knew he wasn’t weak. He’d been through enough to prove that. Climbing wasn’t just recreational, after all; it proved, every time, that he was strong enough to overcome anything if he set his mind to it. He would have thought it’d take more than the cold of one of the mountains he tackled to wear him down, or that it would have taken longer. Of course, he never let himself imagine what it’d be like to be trapped by an avalanche. He’d always just tried to avoid letting that happen.

If he made it out of here, Jeff Morgan would probably laugh in his face. Such a rookie. Couldn’t hack the Krip, couldn’t even make it up and back down without wrecking the entire trail and almost dying.

Oh man, but Jeff would be dumbfounded if Jensen told him those stupid Bigfoot books were actually right on target—

 _Don’t even think about it_ , Jensen admonished himself.He couldn’t tell _anyone_ Jared was here. Ironically, not even—perhaps especially—the man who tipped Jensen off to Jared’s existence in the first place.

Besides, keeping Jared a secret would leave the opportunity for Jensen to claim _he_ kept _himself_ alive up here this whole time. That’s far more badass an admission than being rescued by a yeti. Right? He’d be somewhat of a legend in that regard. He might even surpass Jeff’s notoriety here as the dude who survived being buried alive on Mount Kripke.

Even if Jensen definitely preferred the truth to any tale he’d have to spin.

Gradually, he faded back in on what sounded like wet cloths repeatedly slopping on the floor. Jared was muttering to himself, words Jensen had no hope of translating, the tone obviously frustrated. The longer Jared worked, the more irritated he sounded.

Jensen felt bad, but he knew if he offered to help he’d just get turned down. He could relate; if Jared was like him, offered assistance just made him feel more embarrassed. Useless, even though he was doing all he could.

 _He_ was the useless one here. Be damned if he’d have a hand in Jared feeling that way about himself.

At last, Jared stood with a series of pops in his vertebrae as he stretched, and a quiet groan that had absolutely nothing to do with Jensen’s latest shiver.

Jared grappled for pieces of wood from the pile; stacking them, Jensen assumed, the way he had before. Then he added kindling, which rustled, and what sounded like cloth he was ripping into little pieces. Then he grabbed something that clinked on the far side of the fireplace.

The sound of metal scratching with purpose split the thin air, and sparks flew.

 _Come on_. Jensen willed them to ignite. They kept falling, Jensen could see the neat pile of wood on the grate writ in orange each time, but they died before they could catch hold.

The more this happened, and when Jared kept missing his strikes entirely, quiet little exclamations fell from his lips faster, higher in pitch.

“Hey,” Jensen said. The word stood out like a spark of its own.

No noise from the hearth. Jared was completely still; it was like he’d even stopped breathing

“I have to get this going,” he said. Stress rendered his voice thready, the burr of it unraveling.

“Let me try?”

“You need to stay warm—”

“I’ll be fine,” Jensen said, already extricating himself from the quilt, gulping down the gasp he sucked in at how frigid the air had become. He was proud of how still he managed to remain when he crouched and felt for Jared’s knee beside him. “Let me try.”

Jared pressed the flint and steel into his hand. Fumbling, Jensen managed to get them turned around in both hands, and he shuffled forward until his knees hit the edge of the hearth. He leaned in until he was more or less sure he was close enough to the wood, and struck metal to stone.

Bright sparks flew. He wasn’t quite where he needed to be, but he corrected for his next attempt and that time, little flecks of orange tripped down over the pile of kindling. He moved closer and tried again.

Striking twice in succession, Jensen managed to land a cluster of sparks on something that caught.

Quickly but gently, he blew. They glowed, illuminating the material around them.

He blew again. Gently, painstakingly gently.

Once more, and they flared.

Beside him, Jared let out a soft crow of triumph. But Jensen knew, was sure Jared knew as well, that he had to keep coaxing them or they’d go out. Heart in his throat, back cramping, Jensen urged the little flame to seek out new lodgings again and again, to spread from cloth to twigs, flickering larger and higher until the crackling began to emanate from the side of a log as well.

Jensen grinned over at Jared, and stood.

Or tried, anyway.

Halfway up, his lower back seized, catching midway through the motion and arresting it. Jensen yelped at the fresh pain, stuck off-balance. He reached out for the bed, but was just too far away, and he toppled over.

Jared caught him.

Time, for an eternal moment, stood still. It had been so long since the last time Jensen had let anyone bear his weight. And Jared did it effortlessly, his hands splayed warm and steady. For that moment, the pain vanished.

He'd been careless. He knew better. The long road to recovery had not been an easy one, and for years afterward Jensen had managed to be so careful with himself. Not the least interested in being immobilized again, or undoing the hard work he'd put in. He only moved as well as he did out of sheer stubbornness and a literal decade of physical therapy. And he'd almost undone it all.

Granted, it had been in the name of survival, but it was one more thing to lambaste himself about. One more reason Jensen was an idiot, no matter what he accomplished.

With a whine, he slowly began to straighten. He blinked up at Jared, a sheepish smile forming out of habit, but Jared wasn't letting go. He was so close, and far warmer than the newborn fire beside them. His eyes amid all the hair on his face were as dark brown as they’d ever been, but in this burgeoning ruddy light, they were holes into which Jensen was now falling willingly.

Jensen let his lips part. He felt so small, caught and kept, swept up in everything he’d thus far tried to deny himself feeling. Jared looked just as ensnared.

Like it was a scene in a movie, Jensen saw Jared’s gaze dart to his mouth and back.

 _I could kiss him,_ he thought wildly. _I could kiss him right now, and he’d let me. He’d probably kiss back. Oh god, I could kiss him…_

But he didn’t have to make that call. Jared did it for him.

Warm lips found Jensen’s, those dark eyes fluttering closed, and Jensen’s did the same as he sagged in Jared’s arms. The spicy scent tangled up in all of Jared’s hair suffused his senses as the ticklish strands swept over his skin.

His thoughts flailed. _This is happening—!_

With a sharp inhale he tilted his head, slotting them together in the best way possible. The soft sound that punched out of Jared made it perfect.

Jensen clutched at any bit of hair or clothing he could reach, and Jared shifted, hauling him even closer. The kiss was a fluid, shifting thing, mouths moving in a dance of their own.

All conscious thought flown, Jensen ran his tongue along the seam of Jared’s lips, daring him to open up. He was so eager to explore now that he’d been given permission. He wanted to taste every inch, didn’t care about potential lack of dental hygiene—which turned out to be a non-issue. As his tongue found Jared’s and toyed with it, their teeth clacking gracelessly, all he could taste was the soup they’d eaten.

Jensen ate that right out of Jared’s mouth.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter that finally earns the explicit rating. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

They pulled back for air. Jared hauled in a chilly lungful, unaware he’d needed it.

Staring up at him, Jensen looked fey. Daring. The pupils of those stunning green eyes had grown larger in both the low light, and apparent desire. Although they’d only just begun kissing—with a fervor Jared never would have expected—his lips were flushed and plump. He looked wrecked.

 _Jared_ made him look like that. All because Jared had decided, on a whim, to take charge of this thing brewing between them. He’d never been more pleased with spontaneity. And his obsessive cleanliness. He couldn’t imagine what Jensen would have thought about kissing any other member of his family…

His shudder at the thought was thankfully translated as one of pleasure. Jensen darted back in. A flurry of kisses deepened into longer open ones, each one more intense than the last, Jensen’s teeth dragging on Jared’s lower lip. He could feel every inch of the body pressed against him, including several hard ones digging into his thigh. He wondered if Jensen could feel the way Jared wanted him, too.

Then Jensen shivered. It _definitely_ wasn’t due to pleasure, and broke the spell.

Tearing himself away with regret, Jared glanced down at the fireplace. To his horror he saw the new flames guttering, not spreading as they should. Holding Jensen close, he tugged them both into a crouch so he could poke at the kindling without relinquishing a single inch of distance between them.

“Alacha’lula hates me,” Jensen muttered.

“She isn’t partial to anyone, really,” Jared said. “Not even me.”

“You’d think she’d be more grateful, since you’re sworn to take care of her and all.”

Jared didn’t reply. He didn’t disagree _or_ agree, necessarily. He’d come to regard the mountain as a benevolent yet temperamental elder, taking her whims in stride as best he could. She was predictable in the sense that the weather was; her bounties came and went, as did storms, snows, and thaws.

Reaching for more kindling with Jensen adhered to his side like a wood tick with the best intentions, Jared managed to both feed the flames and not let loose his hold. Jensen’s skin was much warmer than it had been before…

The moment Jared dropped the last of his handful, Jensen had ahold of his chin, tugging him into another series of hot, peppered kisses, which landed on his beard and everywhere around his mouth until finding his lips with a smothered laugh.

 _“I’m_ grateful,” he said between them, each word just as humid and fervent. “So damn grateful.”

“Jensen,” Jared whimpered, clutching at him.

“Up to the bed; c’mon,” he urged, so they stood—more or less—and tumbled across the expanse of the mattress, tangled in one another, still kissing as much as the movement would allow.

Heat pooled low between his hips, a catching and tightening that tugged in the most delicious ways. But a cramp of unease developed as well, one which he tried to stay or at least ignore by focusing on the man in his arms instead, and the way Jensen’s shirt rucked up over all that smooth skin. He didn’t want to think about what could go wrong. All those things he’d never experienced with anyone, and so had no idea how to go about them at all, let alone with Jensen, a human male...

 _Nothing will go wrong,_ he tried to tell himself. _Jensen is beautiful. He’s undoubtedly done this before. Just let him lead._

And leading, Jensen was. He was clearly experienced in this regard, his kisses not just eager but somehow designed to wring every last thought from Jared’s head, leaving him a writhing mess dependent upon each and every one of them for survival.

Jared had never known any part of him, other than the obvious down below, could be so sensitive—nor rubbed so wonderfully raw. Jensen’s beard scratched and tickled, pulling at Jared’s hair and catching the tender edges of his lips as they kissed. And his  _tongue;_ Alacha’lula preserve, but it was such an intimate exercise, learning every inch of someone’s mouth, caressing and being caressed in moan-shot silence.

He needed to touch Jensen _more,_ so he did: shoulders, arms, back, neck, chest, learning every supple curve and solid plane of the man in his arms. Jared sought every inch with his fingertips. For all Jensen was so much smaller than him, all this was uncharted territory. A bright spark of strength ran through him and hummed to the touch. So vibrant. Incredible.

And Jared held him close, slowly learning how to take him apart in return.

Jensen shifted, thrusting a leg across his midsection and straddling him, lithe frame laid out for Jared’s hands to roam as their mouths continued to claim and learn one another. Emboldened, Jared reached down to grab a firm handful of Jensen’s ass—making it a double when Jensen groaned and dug his hips forward, grinding himself against Jared, driving a gasp up out of Jared’s lungs. Jensen swallowed it.

He was so hard. Hard for _Jared._ There was no doubt he wanted this; had been wanting it for nearly as long as Jared had, to think back on heated glances and then-misinterpreted signs.

But what if…?

What if Jared hurt him? Made a fool of himself? Committed some unforgivable faux pas he didn’t even know existed?

It felt like he knew Jensen well enough to assume none of those things would occur, but in truth, they’d only known each other for a few days at best. In reality, he had no idea what Jensen liked or didn’t like. What his limits were—aside from how his body reacted to being buried in snow.

Hands found the button on Jared's worn cargo pants. “You’re thinking too hard,” Jensen murmured, slipping the button free of its loop and dragging the old zipper down with a muffled grinding noise.

Jared agreed, he was. He shouldn’t be thinking at all—and then he wasn’t, when Jensen reached into his fly and fished him out.

“Holy _shit,_ ” Jensen sputtered. Jared sought his eyes in alarm, but the look on Jensen’s face was one of pure delight. Anticipation.

Hunger?

“You’re fucking _huge._ ”

“I—I’m,” Jared was caught between laughter and embarrassment. “I’m huge all over.”

“Yeah, but this, man,” Jensen said, the words pinched and bitten as he wriggled down to the foot of the bed, his back in a sinuous arch, his ass in the air. “This is a work of art.”

Jared peered down at himself. He’d seen his own dick innumerable times, but never in someone else’s hand, and Jensen was right—in his grasp, it did look massive. The dark wiry curls at its base and the thinner hairs on his pelvic ridge obscured part of Jensen’s fingers when he stroked the shaft down, then back up, the darkening head protruding from a fist only about twice its size. The length of it was easily three-quarters that of Jensen’s forearm and a good portion of its breadth.

“I might have trouble with this one,” Jensen murmured. He still sounded delighted.

Jared would respond, but he’d forgotten how to breathe.

The grip on him was skilled. Deft, and firm. Jensen worked him to full hardness with single-minded intent, staring down at his prize as the foreskin shrunk away. This was the look of a man who knew what he wanted, and what he wanted was filling his plane of view. It was a heady feeling, somewhat overwhelming, being the object of such want. Jared couldn’t have possibly known he would like it half so much.

Suddenly, Jensen stopped moving, his grip falling slack. His expression had morphed to shock.

“Oh shit,” he said. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—is this okay? I'm probably moving way too fast.”

His face was crumpling. He was pulling away! They couldn't have that. Jared propped himself up on one elbow, reaching with his other hand for Jensen’s chin. With two fingers beneath it, he raised it gently so Jensen had to look at him.

“It's all right,” he said. He was proud that he managed to keep his voice steady, but still hardly recognized it through all the layers of want and heat and hope that he couldn’t quite suppress.

Jensen didn't look convinced. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Jared said. “I want this. You.”

“Y-you do?”

It broke his heart to see Jensen second-guess himself like this. Jared shifted his hips, finger falling away from Jensen's face to find his cock of what felt like their own accord. He hissed when he wrapped himself up in a strong grip, his balls already drawing up tight, thick against the side of his little finger as he clasped himself tightly at the base.

“Yes. Especially if you do,” he said, strained, drawing his hand upwards, working himself the way Jensen had.

“Oh man, do I ever,” Jensen affirmed, fixated on Jared's hand as Jared kept moving, hunger returning to his eyes. “It just occurred to me way too late that I probably should have asked—”

“Jensen,” Jared interrupted, his chuckle turned breathy when he twisted his grasp over his cock’s sensitive head. “You wouldn't be able to do anything to me I, ungh, didn't want you to.”

“Okay, true.” Wriggling backward, Jensen settled far lower. His face was mere inches from Jared's hand, from Jared’s… A thrill of heat and anticipation zinged through to the soles of his feet.

 _What is he_ —

_Is he—is he going to—_

“Then you won't mind if I do this,” Jensen breathed, heating Jared's knuckles more and more with each word, until Jared caught on and let his hand fall away.

His head tipped back, mouth and eyes wide open in wonder, as Jensen licked a wide stripe up his shaft. He felt the soft, solid tip of Jensen's tongue glide over the slit, teasing at the glans, before the whole thing wrapped around and down. Jared could barely comprehend it.

“Oh, _crags._ ”

Jensen hummed, swirling his tongue around the head, urging it to swell even further. Jared was mid-gasp when Jensen suddenly enveloped it in the hot wet heaven of his mouth, and then Jared suddenly had no air at all.

Even so, a whine escaped him, rising in volume and pitch the more Jensen worked his lips and tongue around. Every slurp sounded more obscene than the last. Hot tingles collected across his skin, running up and down the length of him, collecting at his poles. Jared writhed, already overwhelmed.

“Okay,” Jensen said, pulling off with a pop, “not to be weird, but… you taste clean. Like, really clean. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad, but—”

Jared had to laugh at the accusatory tone. “That's a bad thing?”

“When on earth—where—” Jensen looked so confused for a moment, Jared couldn't help his continued snickers. “Oh! The spring back there?” He snorts. “I'm an idiot.”

He bends once more, kitten-licking all over Jared's cock. “I never noticed you leaving,” he said between teases.

“I—ah! I went while you slept,” Jared answered, beginning to pant when Jensen resumed suckling on the head with relish and he could no longer get enough air. “I can be—very quiet—”

“Mm-hmm,” Jensen hummed over him, all around him, on every inch of his body radiating from his dick outwards.

“Do that _again,_ ” Jared moaned in shock, “oh, _please..._ ”

Jensen hummed around him again, plunging deeper, taking in more and more of the shaft, and then—

_And then—_

Jared groaned loud enough to hear it rebound from every surface in the cave when the whole head of his cock breached Jensen's throat.

Distantly, he noticed a ripple through Jensen's body. But despite what must have been a reflexive gag reaction, Jensen was still in complete control when he pulled back off, slow and steady, swirling his tongue all the way back up.

“I'll probably have to take a dip back there myself,” he said, voice rougher than usual.

It tripped down Jared's spine. “It's too cold,” he replied, shuddering.

“But I smell like stale goat, Jared. Nobody wants to do this with a stale goat.”

“Have you known many—ah!—st-stale— _hnnn…_ ” Jared barely managed, because Jensen's response was another plunge down the entire length. His throat opened for it so beautifully, every bit of him committed to hijacking Jared's thought process and ending the conversation.

Jared could only clutch at the quilt and let him, fitfully shifting in an insistent need to shake some of the building pleasure out.

But Jensen held him down. The man's head bobbed up, down, over and over, keeping to a steady rhythm. His tongue swirled around the shaft each time he pulled up, almost off, just to suckle at the head, caress the slit, and work his way back down. Jared didn't know how he was doing it at all, let alone for so long.

Or maybe it hadn't been that long at all. He couldn't tell. All the world was now contained within this room, within Jensen's mouth and the way he worked his deft tongue around Jared again and again, innumerable swells of pleasure following up and back down.

Incredible. Jared thought it before and he’d think it again ad infinitum: Jensen was  _incredible._ He was some kind of god from beyond the mountain and his mouth was a miracle. Jared, mindless, thrust up for more, trying not to spear Jensen through but at the same time wanting to sink himself in as deep as he could.

Every so often, Jensen would hum—and every time, it drove Jared crazy. His cock pulsed, sending some of his seed down Jensen's throat, and Jensen just hummed even more. He was clearly pleased.

Jared would never complain.

He couldn't last. He didn't want to. His balls drew up even tighter, his cock impossibly hard, and Jensen just urged him on with a hum of encouragement and somehow even  _more_ suction. His hand worked over what his mouth couldn't cover, spreading saliva as it dribbled down and making the whole slide nasty-good. The noises were something else entirely; slurps and wet smacks, the sudden unsealing of tight suction that pulled at Jared's skin. Heat enveloped and receded, yanking his soul along with it.

The world was narrowing to pinpricks and that peculiar kind of heat rising within, from everywhere around him, which signified the imminent arrival of orgasm. Jared had felt it before, to some degree.

But not like this. Oh, never like this.

“Jensen,” he implored in a high-pitched whisper.

Every inch of him tensed, shook, his hips jolting forward to bury his cock and the torrent of his coming deep within Jensen's throat.

He could feel Jensen _swallowing—_ “Sh-shit, feyano sa’wayas _nnnngh_.” He lost English, lost most of his words, except some that only vaguely expressed how stricken he was by the pleasure crashing over him. By Jensen himself.

Hands massaged his thighs as Jensen coaxed him through it with tender lips and tongue.

With a sigh, Jared shuddered out the last of it. He collapsed back into the quilt, boneless. He attempted to find Jensen with one shaky hand but failed, and it dropped uselessly back by his side. It felt so heavy.

Jensen pulled back slowly, gently, but still, Jared hissed at how sensitive his softening erection was. The foreskin tingled like a burn. He could also feel Jensen grinning against his skin.

“You…” he said. Tried to say. His mouth wasn’t working properly.

“Good?”

The tease in Jensen’s voice was unmistakable. Jared felt his cheeks flush crimson beneath his sweaty locks.

“ _You_ are good,” he managed to say at last.

Jensen just hummed in reply, which sent an echoing shiver through Jared’s overtaxed system as he remembered just what that noise and its vibrations did to him.

“I’m glad,” Jensen said softly.

Propping up on an elbow, Jared found those gorgeous green eyes of his by the firelight. They sparkled, still dilated. There was a tightness around the edges that Jared wanted to ease.

He couldn’t read Jensen’s mind. He could only guess based on personal experience, and what little he’d learned of Jensen during their time cooped up together. He would guess that Jensen was more self-conscious than he let on—evidenced by the way he'[d reacted when he thought he was taking advantage—and that Jensen not only worried he wasn’t good enough, but wasn’t about to ask for anything in return.

They weren’t having that, either.

First, Jared pulled his shirt off, the offending garment tacky with sweat he hadn't noticed til now. Jensen's eyes tracked down over his exposed chest, the heat in them not any less for however else he might have felt.

Then Jared began to draw his legs out from under Jensen, and before the man could misinterpret the movement was also pawing at him, dragging him upward as gently but urgently as he could. Jared's hands felt wooden, his limbs full of hindering languor. But Jensen understood. He allowed himself to be hauled up.

They stared at one another.

It could have been an awkward moment, yet it wasn't. Jared studied Jensen’s face—his unkempt hair, fine brows, those _eyes,_ the fine-milled skin over his cheekbones that was dusted with freckles. The beard surrounding his lips, which were puffy from the work they’d put in and slightly parted.

Slowly, tenderly, Jared ran his fingers in a crescent moon from one high cheekbone, down Jensen’s cheek, to beneath his chin. Led him into a kiss.

And snaked his other hand down between their bodies.

Jensen’s cock was still trapped by his pants, but not for long. Jared was more than capable of loosing the button from its hole and dragging down the zipper without looking, all the while kissing Jensen as sweetly as his mounting excitement would allow. He wouldn’t be able to come again tonight—after this, he’d need to sleep for sure—but Jensen hadn’t yet. Jared was going to make sure he did.

“J-Jared,” Jensen stammered against his lips, “you don’t have to…”

“You hush,” Jared said sternly. Leaving off kissing for a moment, he wrapped his free arm around the man’s torso and lifted him bodily, leaning back against the bed, using the button-liberating hand to shove both pants and undergarment down.

Jensen made a noise of impotent protest but helped him shove them the rest of the way down and off.

Sitting back up, Jared situated Jensen on his lap, knees bent, far enough back that he could see the ruddy tip of Jensen’s cock glistening in the firelight. It wasn’t as large as his, of course, but proportionately… Jared couldn’t help licking his lips as he stared. It would still be quite a mouthful, if he ever got that privilege.

Droplets of precome beaded and ran. Jensen was so wet. More than ready. It seemed his efforts had affected them both.

Jared took the whole of that cock into his hand and rubbed at the mess at its tip with his thumb, earning a needy mewl. Jensen shuddered atop him, lurching forward. His forehead met Jared's shoulder.

“Jared…” he whined, muffled in the crook of Jared's neck.

“Tell me if I need to do anything differently,” Jared said, his voice rough. “I’m still learning.”

Jensen whimpered, his hips working, subtle thrusts dragging his cock in and out of Jared’s grip. He was so hard the skin barely moved along his shaft. From the way he bit his lip, tossing his head side to side, the callouses on Jared’s hand must have felt amazing.

They did on a solo hunt, as it were, but to see them affect Jensen this way…

“Crags, you’re beautiful,” Jared blurted, tightening his grip and speeding up to cover for it.

“Jared,” Jensen tried, choking on the syllables. He pulled back from where he'd burrowed, trying to sit taller, hauling in a shuddering breath. His rhythm didn't slow. “Jared… you…”

 _“You,”_ Jared whispered. He darted forward and stole a kiss, trapping his handful between their bodies. It deepened, widened, tongues learning the shape and slide of one another. It mimicked what happened down below. What may yet come.

What Jared was beginning to suspect they both desired.

In that confusing plateau between lust fulfilled and rekindling, Jared knew he was more than willing to take all Jensen would offer, and offer himself in kind. He didn't think he'd feel differently in the morning, not when he'd dreamed of this since soon after they'd met: the bite and lash of Jensen's mouth, the heat between them, even the ache in his wrist from odd angles that made Jensen moan and shake. The sharp tang of their shared arousal mixing with that of the fire.

Soon, Jensen lost all form and function in their kissing, moaning into Jared’s mouth, working his hips and his cock up through Jared’s fist. He was so ready to come. Mindless with it. Jared held him upright, pressed as close as possible, keeping the pace of his snapping wrist staggered with Jensen’s thrusts.

He could tell when Jensen began the final ascent; his cock swelled tight and thick, hard as the handle of Jared’s shovel. He sat back, working hard for it, hips hitching with desperate purpose. He fucked Jared’s hand, such as Jared imagined he would—other things—

Jared bit his lip. His own erection struggled to rise, wanting to be where Jensen was.

Flying.

Jensen came with a shout, driving himself forward with a fast tattoo of thrusts that took Jared by surprise. They bowled him over backward as Jensen’s cock spasmed and spat out its load all over Jared's chest. One hand planted next to Jared's head on the bed, Jensen's eyes were open wide, full of all the things Jared had felt mere minutes before.

It was gratifying. Satisfying. Jared felt just a little bit proud. Jensen jerked the last of it out, shuddering, and Jared stopped moving, simply cupping him as he twitched.

With a sigh, Jensen sagged against him.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Jared nuzzled the side of his head, breathing in deeply his fresh-sex scent. Then, gathering Jensen up, he rolled and laid the man out longways on the warmer side of the bed. He did away with their remaining clothes, still clumsy, Jensen watching him with limpid eyes and not saying a word.

Cleaning himself off with his discarded shirt felt like an intimate act in itself. Jared resisted the urge to bring that mess to his lips; he suspected Jensen might not understand the sudden reverence Jared felt for the tackiness he was wiping away. He wondered if it tasted like it smelled: earthy, strange, and yet familiar. He'd never thought to taste his own. He couldn't imagine that meaning anything at all. Not like this.

When he climbed back into bed, throwing the quilt haphazardly over them both, he gathered Jensen into his arms. Neither of them seemed to feel the need to say anything at all. It didn’t bother Jared, and Jensen was already nodding off, a soft smile on those incredible lips.

Happier than he'd been in a very long time, Jared followed him to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not nearly over yet. But this was fun. :) Let me know what you think...?


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience as we muddle through this story together! I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Jensen woke in fits and starts throughout the night.

At one point, too cold on one side, he burrowed closer to Jared’s musky warmth. Long arms wrapped around him with the molasses-slow tenacity of a sleeper clutching his favorite pillow. The fire was dying, but Jensen couldn’t bring himself to care, not when he was safe beneath the quilt and being snuggled. He was content.

But the chill outside the quilt kept waking him. A foot would stick out, or he’d need fresh air to breathe, and the cold would bite at his skin until it yanked him back to consciousness.

He soon resolved to crawl out and fix it. He struggled to find the presence of mind to get it done quickly, knowing he’d need to avoid freezing to the spot midway between the bed and the fireplace, or dropping something and waking Jared up.

Fixing in his mind’s eye where the wood was, where the flint and steel hung in case he needed them, Jensen took several bolstering breaths before rolling out from under the quilt and into open air so cold it stole those breaths from his lungs.

First, the wood.

Padding over, Jensen balanced on the very outsides of his feet to keep as much of his soles off the floor as possible. He snatched up a few smaller logs. The fire was still crackling, albeit too low to even simmer broth on. Next to it, Jensen felt less like he was going to die before he got this done.

He piled the logs atop it in the same fashion Jared had, grabbed some kindling blindly, stuffed it in various places, and leaned in.

Gently, he blew.

It didn’t take long for it all to catch, but he was still shivering and scrubbing at his sternum by the time he was done. _Rub your chest,_ his memory repeated; an old friend’s advice. _Your arms will take care of themselves._

They had before, and they did now. But by the time the fire had picked back up in earnest, Jensen was more than ready to wriggle back under the quilt. He backed into Jared’s arms this time, the solid line of muscle and heat so very welcome up against him.

Jared made a smothered, sleepy noise of protest.

“You’re so cold,” he mumbled, shifting so their legs entangled, rubbing at Jensen’s arms and chest with his hands and hairy forearms.

With a hum, Jensen sank into his embrace and let him.

They slept.

 

* * *

 

Jensen woke sometime later, feeling overdone. The fire must have caught with a vengeance. He was sweating beneath the quilt. Tacky all over, kind of upset about it, he extricated himself from Jared's clinging limbs. All that fine body hair tickled as it peeled away.

Stretching with care, he let his back pull itself into place, working his arms this way and that until everything felt looser. Lolling his head in a guided circle refreshed his blood flow. Jensen sighed in relief.

_That’s much better._

In response, Jared stirred. Jensen sat there and watched him swim up into consciousness. As his long eyelashes fluttered apart, Jensen swallowed—and was immediately reminded of last night.

Or, well, that indeterminate time before they slept. It was so weird, being completely unable to tell. Jensen figured it would bother him more if he weren't so pleasantly distracted.

His throat _ached_. It was a good ache, well-earned. His morning wood perked up as he swallowed again just to feel it. He'd probably be sore for a day or two. Eating would be interesting. _But it was so worth it,_ he thought, remembering with a delighted shiver. And when Jared opened his eyes, noticed him sitting there, gave him the sweetest sleepy smile… Yeah. Worth all the sore throats of Jensen's entire life.

Jared started to sit up—

The look on his face when he realized all his hair was so damp and sticky was priceless.

“Sleep well?” Jensen asked him through a yawn, surreptitiously covering himself with a forearm. _Down, boy._ “Except for, y’know, that.”

“I'm wet,” Jared grumbled.

“You don't usually sweat when you sleep?”

“Not where the bed _was,_ ” Jared’s voice was rusty, and music to Jensen's ears. “I’m surprised the fire kept so well.”

“I had to coax it along at some point,” Jensen said. “But I didn’t expect this.”

“You did well,” Jared said. It filled Jensen with warmth, and he puffed up a little.

“I try.” With a short laugh, Jensen tucked his knees up to his chest, letting fresh air soothe the swampy gap between his legs. “I almost don’t remember how nearly freezing felt,” he added, amused that it was true.

Jared grunted, swinging his long legs out of the bed. “I need to check the door.”

Right. The door.

The way out, through which Jensen would be expected to leave once it was clear, and never come back. Much more for Jared’s safety than his own, but… still. He really, really wished it didn’t have to be that way.

As Jared lit lanterns, the motions habitual, Jensen eyed the tarp. It almost looked like a permanent fixture there where they’d taped it. Part of him wished it was. Jared had stores, right? Food and water. There were probably fish in that spring back there. Air circulated through its underwater tunnels, and the flue. They had everything they needed to last until the snow thawed.

 _You mean, you have each other,_ his mind whispered slyly. _Right?_

 _Shut up._ Jensen frowned.

Jared didn’t need him, had been just fine up here alone for however many years as the mountain’s hidden caretaker… and he would be fine again once this was all over. Last night had been a breathtaking fantasy come true, but a fantasy nonetheless.

With mornings so often came reality. Jensen was facing it now. Jared didn’t—would never need him, no matter how well Jensen could take his cock.

Carefully, Jared pulled one corner of the tarp aside. Jensen winced, expecting the doorway to be clear already, like a yawning tunnel lined with ice had somehow appeared overnight. But no—the boulder was still stuck fast. It might have been jammed in there worse than before.

He watched with trepidation as Jared tested the boulder, wedging his fingers in around the sides, rocking it slowly with more and more strength behind the movements. It might have wiggled—unless Jensen imagined that—but it didn’t budge.

The wash of relief Jensen felt was stained with guilt. He was disgusted with himself at how _glad_ he was to be stuck here, _glad_ to keep burdening Jared with his presence. He was like some kind of parasite, seriously. How could he justify how clingy he was getting?

He stared at the floor. Through it. One hummer-turned-handy and he thought this was what, true love? Home Sweet Cave? He needed to get a grip.

“Jensen?”

Common sense dictated he should give up on it now before he got his heart broken; or far worse, hurt Jared, a poor sweet guy only trying to be a good Samaritan to the idiot who almost died on his doorstep.

 _Too late,_ his thoughts whispered, sing-song. _You're involved now. You’ve caught feelings. He probably has, too. No matter what you do from this point on, you're gonna end up hurting him, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself._

“Jensen,” Jared said gently. Closer. It shook Jensen aware.

Jared was right beside him, regarding him with those deep brown eyes. The look on his face was obscured by all the hair as usual, but nevertheless, fond. It was an unexpected juxtaposition to the spiral Jensen had just been falling into. While his heart swelled, it also sank.

_You're gonna end up hurting him._

“Yeah?” He mustered a smile.

“Nothing has changed,” Jared said. His brow furrowed. He looked worried, like Jensen was going to blame him or be angry about it.

Jensen had no idea what to say. So many things bubbled up within him: wanting to tell Jared how he felt, one way or another; wanting to beg Jared to let him stay even when the snows melted; wanting to try and play it like he didn’t care when it was abundantly clear he did.

He settled for, “It’s okay,” which turned out to be the right answer. Jared relaxed, sunshine creeping back into the smile that unfolded so easily across his face.

This was bad. Jensen was so taken with this guy he had found by accident, who against all odds cared about him and his wellbeing, who didn’t mind his space being invaded, or being touched or danced with. A guy who didn’t expect sex—who reacted like a dream.

Bad, bad. Jensen felt himself falling, and all he wanted to do was cannonball straight into the depths.

“I should probably move the bed back from the fire a bit,” Jared said. He stood back to offer his hand.

Jensen took it and let himself be heaved effortlessly to his feet, ignoring the clutch of his lower back. The grin he gave Jared was real—and apparently blinding, since Jared blinked at him, fondness falling away to reveal something of his expressions last night.

Grin wavering, Jensen cut his eyes to the floor, a flush prickling across his face like he was a teenager all over again. He liked it way too much when Jared looked at him like that.

He moved out of the way, taking the opportunity to stare unabashedly at Jared's naked body while Jared hauled the bed away from the fireplace. Jensen wondered how often the guy even wore clothes when he was in here by himself. It had to be way more comfortable without them.

All Jared's dark hair really streamlined the lithe, toned proportions of his limbs and torso. Made him even easier on the eyes, actually. Jensen couldn't help it; when his gaze found Jared's ass, he actually licked his lips.

 _Jesus, tone down the thirst,_ he chided himself. _Although…_ He suppressed a snort. _Who knew I'd find Bigfoot sexy?_ Not only that, but now Jensen could say Jared lived up to the name. That old adage about shoe size and all.

He let his mind wander back around the front of Jared—all the vivid detail he'd seen and slobbered over—which he got a great view of when Jared turned and caught him staring.

Even through the hair on his face, his blush was evident.

“Ah—heh,” Jensen said, not sure there was anything he could say in his defense.

“You… You said you wanted to bathe, right?” Jared said quickly.

Jensen’s eyes went wide, full-on deer in headlights. He did feel gross. But faced with his own anxieties and the spectacular view, he’d forgotten. He nodded.

“It’s too cold in the back. But I do have a wash basin somewhere… We could heat a few cauldrons-full of the melted snow.”

Jensen thought about standing in the middle of the room, as naked as he was already, but soaking wet and washing _in front of Jared._ Somehow, despite being exposed in every way that counted, he suddenly felt… shy.

“Um,” he said.

“I can turn my back, of course,” Jared rushed to say.

“No, that’s not—I mean,” Jensen said, spreading his arms wide. “This is as naked as I get, y’know. You’ve already seen it all.”

“Still.” But a little smile formed.

“It’s _fine_.” Jensen shivered suddenly, a chill taking his body by surprise. “Tell you what,” he said, heading back to the bed and the quilt. “If you grab the thing at some point, I’ll use it.” He snuggled under the quilt. It was still damp, but he didn’t care.

“All right,” Jared said. “I’m going to bathe in the back, myself, and wash our clothes as well. I’ll return with supplies.”

Jensen poked his head out from under the heavy cloth. “Hurry back,” he said.

His voice sounded thinner than he would have liked. He cursed himself when Jared gave him an odd look. But there was no pity in it.

“Soon as I can, I promise,” Jared said. “Stay warm.”

 

* * *

 

The spring was at the back of the cavern, Jensen reminded himself for the thousandth time. Of course, it would be too far away to hear anything. Of course, it would take longer than five minutes for Jared to get there, bathe, and come back.

He didn’t want to begrudge Jared a soak, either—though he couldn’t imagine how cold it must be, holy shit—but the minutes ticked by inexorably slowly. Jensen was not a patient man. It was a weakness he could do without, but one he suffered regardless.

 _You’re an idiot. Relax,_ Jensen scowled at himself. _He’s not abandoning his home through a back door because he can’t stand you anymore, because he'd totally keep us stuck here if he_ had _a back door_ _._

The anxious voice in his head kept up its high-pitched whine, but it was a little bitch, and Jensen resolved to ignore it.

Difficult. But not impossible.

He soon found himself dozing off. The fire still crackled steadily. The quilt was a welcome warmth, not stifling like it had been earlier. His mind wandered, skirting away from how his family must be mourning him by now, focusing instead on random other painful thoughts to smother those. A rejection in high school, other injustices he’d suffered. Surgeries. Recoveries. An old boyfriend’s smile, which still hurt more than he’d like, and the way he’d dreaded running into Tom for months after they broke up.

It all morphed into thinking about running through the forest when the snow finally thawed. He wouldn’t be able to keep up with Jared, of course, but it would be beautiful up there, and the joy he felt just thinking about it blossomed within him. Jared’s grin amid hair dappled with sunlight, one of those huge hands grasping his, pulling him to a secret grove with a soft, secluded mossy floor...

The sounds of Jared approaching took him by surprise, as did the realization that he was waking up, not just noticing.

He yanked the quilt off his head. “Back so soon?”

Jared snorted. He was laden with things; blankets draped over both shoulders, a barrel hefted with both hands, and a beaten steel wash basin hanging back from his forehead. Draped with their clothes, it was like the world’s most hilarious cowl. Jensen did a double take and burst out laughing.

“What are you?” he sputtered. “The Bathman?”

“I figured it’d be more efficient this way.”

 _Of course he wouldn’t get that joke,_ Jensen thought, _he’s a yeti that lives on a mountain. And it was terrible, even for me._

Jared sat the barrel down near the fire and eyed it. “I may need to get another one of these, though. They’re not very large.” It stood to his waist.

Still laughing, Jensen sighed the last of it away, shaking his head. “It’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

Jensen had underestimated how exposed he would feel, standing there in calf-deep water bathing himself. Or how much it would turn him on.

That was all Jared’s fault.

Jared, who was busying himself in the kitchen area, having slid back into another worn set of ill-fitting clothes with an ease Jensen envied. Jensen tracked him as he moved, noting the tension in his broad shoulders as well as the way he kept biting his lip and barely averting his eyes.

Unfortunately for both of them, the wash basin was too small around for Jensen to sit in and bathe at the same time. So he stood, and washed with Jared’s homemade goat’s milk soap, and tried not to look like he was watching Jared try not to stare. He felt like an amateur porn star on a live cam. It was bad enough that he had to keep facing front; his back was a mess, and he didn’t want Jared to see. To ask. He was so tired of explaining.

But facing front meant displaying himself in other ways. Raunchier ones.

The glances Jared kept stealing his way, obviously almost involuntary, didn’t help. Jensen had never felt so attractive. His dick liked it too, and wouldn’t just stay soft between his thighs. It kept trying to swell and steal more attention. Jensen was torn between maintaining some semblance of decency _—ha—_ or letting it run this show. After all, last night had gone really, _really_ well.

And the water felt _great._

It wasn’t until he’d stepped out onto a folded blanket and was reaching for a towel that Jared spoke.

“Jensen—”

It sounded like he’d blurted it, and Jensen froze, resisting the urge to clutch the towel to his front.

“What’s up?” Inwardly, he congratulated himself for sounding so close to casual.

Jared was bright red beneath his locks. It was easiest to see just under his eyes and near his ears, but now that Jensen had seen him in various states for a few days, he found he could tell when all the skin between the follicles had flushed.

“I, um. I’m not sure how to ask this,” Jared said, “but…”

Wrapping himself up, Jensen swallowed. That didn’t sound like a prelude to anything good. His anxiety told him it could be any number of negative things, all of which flashed through his mind all at once, and he was telling it vehemently to shut up when Jared asked:

“What happened?”

Jensen blinked. His anxiety did too. “Huh?”

Jared’s eyes were fixed on his front—his lower front, to be precise. Jensen glanced down the old checkered green thing he was wrapped in, and back up with a quizzical frown.

“Your... um,” Jared said, then huffed out the rest of the breath, sucking in another. “Your dick doesn’t look like mine, and I’m wondering why,” he finished in a rush. His head tipped back, eyes on the ceiling. “I feel like an idiot just asking; I tried to tell myself it was probably just a human thing, and I didn’t want to be rude...”

“My—” Jensen blinked. Then he laughed, “oh yeah,” his heart thudding, his anxiety releasing, giddy that it wasn’t something horrible. “Of course you haven’t seen—I’m circumcised.”

The blank expression he got in return was almost comical.

“It’s… when some boys are babies, they… uh, remove part of the foreskin.”

Shock painted in the blank spots. 

“They _what?_ ”

Jensen couldn’t help it, he snorted.

“Wouldn’t that _hurt?_ ” Jared was appalled. He sat down in one of the chairs at the table, harder than he probably meant to, staring into space for a moment before gaping back up at Jensen. “How could anyone _do_ that?”

“Well, you remember how we were talking about God and stuff,” Jensen said with a shrug. “It’s a thing one of the major religions has always done, and it just kinda... carried over into all of modern society. Something about hygiene, I think, even though you can keep the uncut ones like yours clean just fine. Case in point.” He gave a little nod to Jared’s crotch. “Nowadays, more parents choose to leave it alone. But back when I was born, it was just a thing they did to all baby boys.”

Jared still looked horrified.

“I don’t remember how it felt, dude. It’s just… like that now.”

Blinking a few times, Jared seemed to be digesting that. Then he colored anew, no doubt remembering the night prior and how Jensen reacted to being touched.

“So you still feel pleasure, then?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jensen laughed. “Did it not seem like I was having the time of my life?” He smirked, making the split-second decision to saunter closer. “Because I’m pretty sure I was.”

Jared murmured something, glancing down at the floor with a coy little smile.

“What was that?” Jensen prodded, delighted, almost certain he’d heard it correctly.

“Sure sounded like it,” Jared said, eyes shining, looking back up. He stood, and in two strides had met Jensen in the middle of the floor.

“So you don’t mind that it’s different?” Jensen made it sound like a joke, but he really, really needed to know that Jared’s glances during the bath weren’t just out of morbid curiosity.

“Jensen,” Jared said, laughing, “you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

There was no refraining from kissing him then. Jensen was up on his toes in an instant, reaching up against Jared’s broad shoulders, around Jared's neck as best he could to tangle fingers in all that damp hair, yanking his head down to crash their lips together.

Jared made a  _mmph_ sound into the kiss, surprised and heated, tilting his head to slot them together as he tugged Jensen flush against him. He was so _warm._ Shaggy and perfect. Jensen held him fast as a moan escaped his nose. Inhaling sucked some of Jared's hair up one nostril, but Jensen didn't even care, just huffed it out again.

The kiss devolved into making out almost instantly. Jensen, electrified and loving it, felt his heart struck through: Jared was as crazy about him as he was about Jared.

_Jared was crazy about him._

Holy shit.

“This is awesome,” Jensen murmured, pecking at Jared’s lips between. “You’re awesome.”

“You,” Jared gasped. He adjusted his arms, heaved, and hoisted Jensen clear off the floor in a move that had Jensen laughing breathlessly.

Jensen wrapped his legs around Jared’s waist, and sagged so he dragged along Jared’s thickening cock. With a whine, Jared hauled him back up, whirling to press him against the wall beside the mirror. It wasn’t nearly as hard an impact as it could have been, Jensen knew; it was _hot._

Their mouths met again—

But somebody’s stomach decided to interrupt with a loud, determined grumble.

Jared pulled back, eyes wide, clearly embarrassed but with an expression still so happy he just looked amused. Jensen grinned at him, wide and teasing.

“Hungry?”

“Apparently,” Jared said, sounding mortified.

“It’s okay,” Jensen said, massaging the back of his neck through all the hair. “This’ll keep.”

_You can keep me._

“Are you sure?” Jared asked softly.

_Absofuckinglutely._

Jensen kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More smut ahead! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) and as always, please let me know what you think so far.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up shorter than I wanted it to? But it's good (smutty) things leading to better (smuttier) things, so maybe it's fine.

The cave soon filled with the heady aroma of roasting goat. Jared, having gone to the back and fetched two more frozen legs, running water over them again and again until they were thawed enough to put on the spit. His herb blend complemented the meat, the smell was tantalizing—but that’s not what was making his mouth water.

Jensen had put on his own clothes. Freshly dried by the fire, they fit him well, clinging in all the right places to lie properly beneath that heavy jacket he’d worn. Somehow, their cut adhering to his body was even more alluring than his previous nakedness. Jared could muse about unwrapping gifts and so forth, but he was too busy allowing himself to be distracted.

It took the fat from the goat legs dripping and hissing in the flames to wrench his attention back to cooking.

It didn’t help that Jensen seemed just as distracted by him. Twice, Jared caught him paused in the act of gathering dishes, pouring drinking water into Gran’s stoneware cups until they overflowed, staring over at Jared. Something in his expression told Jared he wasn’t hungry so much for the goat.

The meal itself was over quickly. They sat on the bed, still closer to the fire than the table, and ate in silence. In haste. Until at last Jensen stood, crouched down, and placed his plate and cup against the wall out of harm’s way.

Jared did both as well, slower. A sudden shyness was beginning to overtake him. He faced Jensen again as Jensen turned and reached for him.

Stretching up, Jensen wound both arms around him, running a hand up the back of Jared’s head to tangle fingers in his hair again. The man was up on his toes, but his expression said he didn’t mind, that he liked it here with Jared wrapping him up, completing the embrace—with Jared’s crotch pressed into his warm, full belly.

“I…” Jared began, for some reason, but with Jensen looking up at him like he’d hung the moon, he couldn’t think of what he’d meant to say.

And then Jensen licked his lips.

It was a small, unconscious little movement, but it crackled straight down to Jared’s cock. Jensen must have felt the moment it began to swell against him in earnest, for he gave a low little chuckle that also skipped down Jared’s nerves. He pressed them even closer together.

“I’m sorry,” Jared blurted.

This time Jensen really did laugh. “What for?” He wriggled a little. “I like that you want me.”

Blushing brought out his freckles. Jared kept forgetting they were there; Jensen’s entire face was gorgeous, but the rest of it was completely outshone by his eyes. His freckles, his auburn beard, the shaggy length of his hair, all of it framed two windows to the most verdant forest Jared had ever seen.

“I want you, too, y’know,” Jensen said. His smile wavered in an open, self-conscious sort of way. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever…”

“Of course I do,” Jared said, honestly and a little raw. He swallowed. “I’ve never… I didn’t know it was possible to want like this.”

“Jared,” Jensen sighed, looking so happy, his eyes shining with so many things, and it was only natural for him to push up even more on his toes and for Jared to bend and press their lips together.

“Jensen, I—” Jared said when next they parted.

_I love you._

He almost said it aloud. Almost.

But it wasn’t time. Not yet. Maybe not ever. His heart sang it, his head spoke it, but something held his voice back.

Maybe it was the fact that he knew, he _knew_ Jensen would have to leave. It would break Jared into tiny pieces, but in time, he would heal. It was for the best. Jensen didn’t belong here, and Jared couldn’t come with him—Alacha’lula needed him. Besides, he was far too hirsute to pass as human. Jensen couldn’t go back and forth; someone would notice. Then the world would notice. It simply couldn’t be.

Jared already ached with the knowledge of it. He wondered if Jensen did too, if that was why his kisses felt so urgent when they fell together again. He wondered if Jensen felt more than want—and Jared wanted him to, maybe more than he wanted the man himself—but he couldn’t be sure. And he couldn’t be selfish.

And so, instead, he said: “I… I want to...” Unsure of how to phrase the question, Jared glanced down at Jensen’s beltline, licking his lips instinctively.

Jensen hummed, sounding delighted. “Really?”

“Yes.” Jared was getting even harder just thinking about it. “I want to feel you in my mouth like you felt me.” _Filling me up. Stuffing yourself into my throat and finding your pleasure there._

When he tore his gaze away and back up, Jensen’s eyes were steadily darkening, thinning the rings of green.

“I think I wanna let you,” he said.

There was nothing else Jared could do but drop to his knees.

He fumbled with Jensen’s belt and fastenings; his fingers felt too large, too clumsy to touch Jensen properly. Measuring his breaths and forcing himself to slow down was difficult, especially when Jensen’s fingers found his hair again. But Jared managed to shove all that cloth down around Jensen’s ankles eventually.

As much as he would have liked to sit back on his heels and drink in the sight, urgency would not be waylaid for long.

When Jared’s fingers wrapped around the smooth bared length of him, Jensen hissed. It was followed by a moan.

And when Jared leaned forward, got his mouth on Jensen for the first time, Jensen swore and staggered.

Jared pulled off.

“Is it all right?” he asked, concerned, part of him sure he shouldn't be but wanting so badly to do right by Jensen.

“Of course,” Jensen scoffed. He already sounded out of breath. The forest of his eyes sparkled down at Jared in darkening hues. “Are you?”

“Oh, yes.” The words got brushed across the damp tip, earning another ragged breath from above Jared’s head.

Jensen tasted faintly of soap, but mostly of clean skin, the light musk of him settling in around Jared’s nose. He smelled of Alacha’lula, of life, and a hint of sweat that reminded Jared of the last time they were this close to one another. When Jensen slid his tongue around the head of Jared’s cock, like this—

_“Jared!”_

And hummed like this—

“Oh, oh god…”

And applied his whole mouth to sucking Jared’s soul out the tip of his dick like _this._

Jensen cried out, buckling forward, his hips pumping unconsciously as he sought to burrow deeper into Jared’s mouth. He was clutching at Jared’s head like it was all that was keeping him afloat. Jared suckled at Jensen with a fervor he had only just discovered was a part of him, a desire set deeper and more firmly than he ever could have guessed. He would apparently be perfectly content with this in his mouth for the rest of his days. With those noises in that voice ringing off his walls and in his ears.

“Here,” he grunted, pulling off, snaking his arms around Jensen’s legs and bodily hoisting him over to the edge of the bed where he splayed with barely any leverage. Then Jared swung himself around to hold Jensen in place.

Jensen whined his name. It zinged straight through him.

Licking around the head of Jensen’s cock again—which when he was this hard really just looked like he’d cleared his sheath already, a gratifying concept in itself—Jared wasted no time taking it deeper. He had no idea whether Jensen was large by human standards, but was delighted to find the head nudging the back of his throat.

He wanted to feel it. Wanted Jensen to fill him until he was gasping for air. Jared had no idea where that particular longing came from, but now that he was fulfilling it, he didn’t care. He played with his own gag reflex, taking Jensen deeper and deeper, loving the way his whole body spasmed when he hit the right spot, just like Jensen’s had before. He felt _good._

He was clearing his own sheath just from this. His cock hung full between his legs, which he spread to let himself dangle in counterweight to the fat length filling up his mouth. His hips bucked. He darted his mouth down over Jensen’s length, again and again, and for a while just pumped in rhythm with himself.

That along with the pressure from Jensen tugging on his hair as he worked was delicious, almost as much as the man himself. Each blurt of precome from Jensen’s slit made Jared want more. He found he couldn’t taste it as well if it issued straight down his throat, so he reluctantly backed off an inch or so and tried new ways of moving his lips, his tongue, recalling as much as he could from Jensen’s mouth on him, feeling rewarded and hotter all over each time he coaxed forth a new spurt, body-warm and salty. It tasted better than he could have imagined. All of this was better than anything he could have dreamed upw. He was glad he hadn't allowed himself to try.

He also discovered that Jensen liked suction, but _really_ liked tongue around the exposed head, which was even more sensitive than Jared could have hoped. Using a few fingers to cover the rock-hard length, Jared focused the wet smear of his mouth up there. His free arm roamed up the side of Jensen’s body, up under his shirt to his pebbled nipple, raking blunt nails down his ribs to feel him shiver.

Jensen’s chest heaved under his palm with gasping breaths and the most delectable noises. Soon, he was flat on his back on the bed, grasping at Jared nervelessly.

Covering Jensen’s whole dick with his fist, Jared turned his attention to the sac beneath, drawn up so tight it must have been aching. Suckling at it turned Jensen’s noises a shade of overstimulated Jared didn’t care for. But when he caressed the whole of it with his tongue like he had the head, switching off almost leisurely but with no less focus between the two places, had Jensen begging at the top of his lungs for more.

It was one of the sweetest things Jared had ever heard. His name gasped into thrice its syllables; aborted halves of words and sounds flung together in nonsensical praises; this was a music Jared could listen to every day for the rest of his life, and he’d still never tire of it. Jensen’s voice broke in the most thrilling ways. He harmonized with grasping fingers, writhing hips… He was a symphony of flavors and textures and sensory overload that would put the dawning of spring to shame.

He was getting close.

Jared could smell it, taste it, feel in his hands and between his lips. He wanted to take Jensen there so completely the man lost all reason—just like Jensen had done to him. He wanted every part of this so fiercely it took some part of him aback. But despite never wanting like this before, it felt so natural, so good, it couldn’t possibly be wrong.

There could be no ill in wanting to give someone everything he could, not when that someone was so wonderful, and so giving themselves.

Bracketing Jensen’s heaving midsection with his arm, Jared redoubled his efforts, drawing out every drop of flavor Jensen could provide. His beard tangled with the coarse, dark curls at the base of Jensen’s cock. His fingers molded to the smooth shapes of Jensen’s balls. And his entire mouth worked over Jensen’s length in every way Jared could think to move. He was so utterly focused on what he was doing that at first, he didn’t realize Jensen was actually forming words.

“Jared!” Jensen tugged hard at the hair on his shoulders. It stung, and Jared whipped his head up, his mouth losing Jensen so quickly the head smacked his chin on the rebound.

Had he been doing something wrong? No, there was nothing but fire in Jensen’s eyes, lust, and pure need. His lips trembled.

Now that he had Jared’s attention, though, he seemed lost in it.

“Yeah?” Jared rumbled, encouraging. He almost didn’t recognize his own voice—wrecked by his work, it sounded like the mountain herself speaking through him.

By his shudder, Jensen seemed to like it.

“Fuck me,” he gasped.

Jared gaped, his cock suddenly so much harder he felt lightheaded.

_“Please.”_


	15. Chapter 15

****Oh hell, he was gonna come before he had Jared’s enormous cock in his ass—and not to belabor the point, of course he wanted to come. But Jensen had never before in his life wanted so badly to come hanging off someone’s dick, and be damned if he’d let his body ruin it for him now.

“Jared!” he gasped, throwing caution to the winds and tugging on Jared’s shoulder hair so hard he might have pulled a few strands out.

He would have felt bad about that, and probably really would, later…

But when Jared glanced up in surprise, need smacked into Jensen like a brick from a pitching machine and all he could do was beg.

“Fuck me! _Please.”_

Jared’s breathing was already heavy. His eyes grew darker as he nodded. Jensen felt a thrill of anticipation start in his scalp, cramp in his gut, clench up his balls, and curl around in his toes.

But then Jared blinked. His expression morphed from interested, hungry, to a look Jensen wished he didn't know so well: self-consciousness. He’d fought it off in the mirror too many times to count.

“Hey,” he said, even as Jared began to shuffle backward. Jensen sat up to reach for him.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Jared said. “You’re… please don’t take this the wrong way, Jensen, but you’re so much smaller than me.”

Jensen couldn’t help snorting. “Not that much. What are you, seven-five? Seven-seven, maybe? You can’t be that much taller than that dude from _It Follows._ ”

“I…” Jared’s nonplussed expression shouldn’t have been that adorable. “What? I’ve never measured myself.”

Peering down at Jared’s erection, Jensen glanced back up with a smirk. “Never?”

A beet-red flush spread beneath Jared’s hair.

“Trust me,” Jensen said, wrapping fingers around himself with forced nonchalance—the suspense was killing him, and his own hard-on hadn’t flagged a bit. “I’ve taken bigger.”

Jared didn’t look convinced.

It wasn’t the time for Jensen to wax on about his toy collection, or just how creative he’d gotten with suction cups on every non-porous surface in his apartment. Dry spells with partners were one thing, and he did miss the intimacy—that was a craving this encounter fulfilled in spades—but he didn’t lack for pleasure when he wanted it. And he wouldn’t admit it to just anyone, but Jensen was... a bit of a size queen. Jared had no idea just how much he’d loved having that monster in his mouth, nor how eager he was to have it cramming him full.

He didn’t want to think about leaving but knew that when he did, he’d find every toy he played with lacking.

“I had you in my mouth, remember?” Jensen glanced back down just in time to see Jared’s cock give a satisfying twitch. Oh, he remembered.

Back up to those gorgeous dark eyes. “I want you,” Jensen said, a little breathier than intended when his calluses caught as he stroked himself. “I _trust_ you.”

“But if I do hurt you—”

“Look,” Jensen said, “you’re not going to. I'll help you make sure, okay?” He waited for Jared's reluctant nod. “Okay. Go get your jar of oil.”

Jared cocked his head to the side but did as Jensen requested, coming back with a glass jar full of what Jensen had discovered earlier was coconut oil. _Thank you, Paleo enthusiasts, for rescuing my desperate ass—literally—two years ago, and now._

“The stuff most people use for cooking wouldn’t have worked. But somehow, you’ve got this—”

“It’s a recent acquisition,” Jared interrupts. “I like the way it smells, and it cooks more evenly than using grease. What is it?”

“Coconut oil. I bet you’ve never seen a coconut.” The old joke that coconuts were mammals because they grew hair and produced milk flashed through Jensen’s mind, along with the clapback about Diogenes with his chicken. _“Behold, a man!”_

“Tell me later,” Jared said, opening the jar. “What do I do with it?”

Jensen was already shimmying out of his pants as deftly as he could manage, pleased that Jared seemed so ready to do this despite his misgivings.

“I’m going to turn over on my hands and knees,” he said. He firmly told the anxiety spiders trying to emerge once more in the pit of his stomach that with his shirt on, Jared wouldn’t see his back. It was fine. “Get some of that on your finger…”

He did as he said he was going to, cock hanging full and heavy between his legs, and he barely had time to feel the chill of open air on a sensitive area before the rough pad of Jared’s finger smoothed slick right over top of it. There was no holding back a little cry.

Quickly, he looked back over his shoulder. “You’re fine.”

Jared looked caught out, his finger held close to his chest.

“I like it.” Jensen grinned at him.

Lowering his chest to the bed so far as his back would allow, he presented himself to Jared.

“What do you think?”

Huge hands bracketed his ass, thumbs spreading him slightly, smoothing over his skin. “I like it,” Jared rumbled from behind him, quoting him back in a lower and far more aroused tone of voice. “I want to—Jensen, can I… um,” he said, sounding at such a loss that Jensen had to turn around again.

Jared’s eyes were fixed on his ass, but they darted from there to his face and back. It was clear he wasn’t sure if he should ask, or even want what Jensen was fairly certain he knew Jared wanted.

“Do whatever,” Jensen told him, rather than try to guess. “If I don’t like it, I’ll just tell you.” _But I’m pretty sure I will._

Moments later, he found he’d guessed right when Jared’s tongue lapped that smudge of oil straight off his puckered hole.

The noise that punched from him was high and needy. It had been at least a decade since he’d last been rimmed. Not a lot of people liked to do it, even during a sixty-nine.

Jared’s tongue was an animal unto itself. Now that he’d been given permission, gotten a taste and apparently liked it, he spread Jensen’s ass wider with his hands and licked right in.

His hair tickled but Jensen hardly noticed. The nerves he struck tingled, so good it was blowing Jensen’s mind. Jared worked his tongue around, delved and lapped, wickedly tuning his movements to the quiver of Jensen’s thighs.

Jensen grabbed at the quilt, staring wildly over the edge of the bed at nothing.

“Oh… oh god, _Jared—_ holy shh…”

Suddenly, Jared seemed intent on eating him out ‘til he came from that alone. His tongue savored, probed, dipping in and swirling over. Jensen had never felt so damn sensitive anywhere. His cock pulsed, dripping.

“Jared,” he whined, backing up, unable to help himself.

Jared took the hint and fucked his tongue straight in, hard, right to the thick root of it, thrusting in crude imitation of what was to come. He was teasing Jensen apart, each motion delicious yet insufficient.

And then he _hummed,_ vibrations echoing down his tongue.

“Oh, god…” Jensen babbled. “Hey, g-get… get a finger in there too. Use the—the… _oh yeah.”_

Jared was taking to instruction beautifully, already there with an oiled fingertip, dipping it into Jensen alongside electrifying laps of his tongue.

“Move it a little,” Jensen said in barely more than a hoarse whisper.

He was ecstatic to find Jared already so inventive as to drizzle more oil on and take that finger deeper. Heat bubbled up all across Jensen’s skin, in his palms and the soles of his feet, and he wished his back could stand him dropping to a shoulder in order to get a hand on his cock. He settled for getting his legs closer together, rubbing himself against the quilt and his own legs however he could. The position opened him wider.

Jared’s knuckles brushed his ass, made hot by his breath, his tongue still flicking around where his finger was buried.

“Keep going,” Jensen moaned. “Keep— _hnng,_ yes, that.”

The finger pulled out, and more drops of oil spilled. They tickled down Jensen’s legs as Jared slowly but steadily pushed the finger back in. He pulled back from licking and Jensen could feel eyes on him, imagined how intently Jared must have been watching his finger as he began to fuck it in and out of Jensen in a slow, steady rhythm.

Jensen focused on relaxing. It was difficult with this fire inside him, need trying desperately to overtake caution. He wanted Jared to pound him into this mattress—to see how hard they could go without breaking the bed—maybe they _would_ break the bed, Jensen didn’t _care—_

Jared growled something softly behind him, raspy and lyrical.

“Wh-what?”

“You’re so beautiful,” Jared said in English, no less passionate.

Ducking into the crook of his arm, Jensen felt all at once overexposed and so damn lucky.

“I mean it, I never even thought I'd get to kiss you, and now...” Jared's breath huffed suddenly right up against Jensen's entrance. “Now I get this?”

With a muffled noise, he fell to licking in around his finger again before Jensen could say a single word, knocking all notions of words from Jensen's reach. Everything narrowed to those sensations, what Jared was making him feel.

“I—I know, right?”

But he didn't have time to feel like an idiot, no matter how he sounded to himself. Jared was nudging a second fingertip around the first, licking and suckling at every bit of Jensen he could get his mouth on back there.

Jensen didn't want to waste time on more prep. He knew he needed to, safety first and all that—but damnit, however long it had been since he was last at home with a dildo wasn't long enough for his body to forget how to do this entirely. He wouldn't need much more.

“Jared,” he whined.

“I want to be careful.”

“There's careful and then there's being a goddamn tease,” Jensen mumbled. But he knew Jared was right, and Jared must have known him well enough already to know he was just being a brat, because there was a soft nip of teeth to the left of his fingers.

“Patience, erythoa.”

Jensen strained around behind, trying to get a look at Jared, even though all he could see were hunched shaggy shoulders in a faded t-shirt.

“What'd you call me?”

He did get Jared's eyes then, a surprisingly intense glance around his hip.

For the longest time, Jared just looked at him. Long enough for all humor to flee and for Jensen to think it must have been something so serious, Jared hadn't meant to say it at all.

Moments passed, and Jensen became more certain with each one that Jared wouldn't tell him.

“I can't think of a translation,” Jared said finally. “None of the words I know are right.”

“Hey, there might not be one, it's okay,” Jensen rushed to say, but Jared kept talking overtop of him as he did sometimes, saying, “The closest I can think of is 'beloved'.”

Backlit by the firelight, it was difficult to tell, but Jensen was sure Jared flushed his deepest red yet before bending back to his task with such pointed enthusiasm that Jensen had to let it go.

But the word still rang in his memory.

_Erythoa..._

Jensen shuddered. _I love you, too._

There was no denying it now. Hadn't been, for a while, but Jensen could repress and deny with the best of them and hadn't wanted to let himself think it was true. It had happened so quickly. And nothing gold could stay, it wasn't in the cards, etcetera—but despite how he told himself that he would have to leave when the snows thawed, while simultaneously running from the thought, he couldn't deny the way he felt anymore. It was too deep. Too vast.

His heart had cracked wide open, and Jared was nestled between the halves.

“Ah, Jared!” Two long fingers slid in at once, a fresh splash of oil slicking the way for Jared to change his angle ever so slightly and rub right up against his prostate. “Do that again.”

“What, this?”

“Hnn, yeah, there it is...” The more times he bumped it, the more insistent Jensen's pleasure became. His cock was getting antsy. His ass clenched against those fingers so tight it burned in the best way, and Jensen hoped as his muscles fluttered that Jared would get with the program without making him beg.

But with the way this was going, he might do it anyway.

“I don’t need much more prep than that,” he said. It came out strained between his teeth. “I really don’t.”

“Are you sure…?”

“Ah… yes…”

Behind him, Jared hauled in a deep breath. His fingers vacated Jensen slowly, almost glacial in their care. Anticipation seized Jensen all over, and he fought to keep his muscles as loose as possible where they needed to be.

He could hear Jared slicking himself up, the low sounds that escaped as he did. Jensen pictured it: Jared’s back bowed inward, callused fingers shiny with oil, encircling his rigid shaft. Jacking it with steady intent. Yeah, Jensen wouldn’t complain if he ever got to watch Jared get himself off.

Then a soft, blunt thickness nudged at him _there._ He sucked in a sharp breath that chilled the points of his teeth.

“Jensen…”

Jared was _still_ hesitating?

“You won't break me,” Jensen rasped. “Just go slow.”

“All right,” Jared said, his voice gone deeper.

Pressure began to expand, forcing Jensen open even slower than the fingers had left him. Jensen had to fight both hyperventilation and the urge to stop breathing altogether. Jared was every bit as big as he looked, as he’d felt, and he wasn’t tapered like a toy… But as Jensen forced himself to breathe, to open up and take it, white-hot pleasure crackled through his nerves from that spot outward.

Jared was thick. So thick. Jensen was being impaled, filled in a way he couldn’t quantify, the slide of the oil between them making it so easy. He wanted to ram backward and take it all at once. The urge was so visceral it might have shocked him if he weren’t so busy fighting it. If he hurt himself here, he’d be in trouble. Oh, but he wanted to feel the nub of the head poking out his front like yesterday.

He wanted Jared to fuck him so deeply his body would never be the same.

Settling to the hilt, Jared let out a gust of breath so hard it ruffled Jensen’s hair, all the short ones on the back of his neck standing on end. He shivered, goosebumps rising on his skin, and the clench felt so good he let it keep happening until Jared made a sound, a low groan in his throat.

“You like that?” Jensen asked, barely recognizing the strangled growl of his voice.

“Jensen…” Jared fell forward over him, propped up on an arm. Warmth and his silky hair caressed Jensen’s skin. “You’re so tight around me. I never… is it always like this?”

“No,” Jensen whispered. “No, it’s not.”

He rocked back a little. Twin noises escaped both of them. He really could feel Jared pressing so far within him that he had to check, just had to—he’d never owned a toy as large as the ones he’d seen in videos of this. When his questing fingers found the rise of Jared’s cock beneath his skin, just shy of his belly button, he quaked.

“There you are,” he said. He rubbed at it. Jared’s hips gave what felt like an involuntary thrust forward, creating a mound Jensen could grip. He was so full. So stretched out and speared open. It was revolutionary.

He couldn’t hold back any longer. Rocking forward, losing an inch or so of Jared within him and missing it instantly, he pressed back against the shaggy-coated spurs of Jared’s hip bones. Then he did it again.

Jared’s hips snapped forward to meet him on the third thrust.

They cried out together. Quickly, so quickly, the thrusts became harder, just as deep but faster, setting a fierce pace that more than satisfied all that anticipation. Jared’s cock swelled even thicker, rubbing along all those nerve endings at Jensen’s rim—Jensen worked forward, back, forward again with as much inertia as he could muster. Jared gripped him by the hips and really put his back into it, and Jensen’s thoughts whirled away.

They were fucking. Jared was _fucking him_ and doing it really, _really_ well… Bending so far as his back would allow, Jensen hung his head and took it. He met every thrust with a vengeance. The sharp smacks punctuated animal sounds Jensen slowly realized were coming from him, barks and yips and begging moans. He was vocal sometimes, sure, but Jared was really bringing out the slut in him.

He loved it.

He wanted more. All of it. Everything Jared could give him. Hell, the guy could completely rearrange his insides for all Jensen cared, so long as every inch of that cock was inside him too.

Beginning to sweat, he clenched down on all that rigidity. Jared yelped the first time he did it, grabbing at him, stroking down his side, the flat of his palm finding the place in Jensen’s front that swelled outwards every time he went deep enough. Jensen worked his muscles, thrust and clenched and thrust again. Sex was a crude dance, but it found its own rhythm.

It didn’t take long for that rhythm to falter.

“Jensen,” Jared said raggedly, too soon—Jensen knew he couldn’t blame him, but too soon—”I’m gonna _—hhh—_ gonna—”

“Come for me,” Jensen grunted, “come in me, I wanna feel it—”

“Ohhh… oh, _oh..._ ”

Two more sharp, heavy thrusts and Jared’s cock swelled impossibly wide. He panted through it, staggering, holding onto Jensen’s hips for dear life as he flooded Jensen with warmth.

He kept slamming in, the slide of him hotter, wetter, until finally his hips stuttered to a halt and he simply stood there, twitching inside Jensen, breathing hard.

Then he shivered all over.

Jensen laughed, dark and low.

He didn’t see it coming. One moment, Jared was loosing his grip—the next, he was running a hand up under Jensen’s shirt to smooth over his back.

Well, it would have been smooth, had he not met the damning mess of scar tissue instead.

Jared stopped still. He didn’t remove his hand, but Jensen did it for him, crawling forward and hissing as Jared’s soft cock slipped out of him.

 _Oh no, no no no… no,_ he thought wildly, _you were never supposed to see…_ His mind roiled, anxiety spiders throwing a party, nothing he could do to stop them. _I’m damaged, nobody wants damaged goods,_ he thought, hating that he was thinking it but unable to deny it. _Why did you have to… goddamnit, everything was going so well..._

All of Jared’s come would drip out if Jensen stood up, so he rolled over, clenching, thinking about how far it was to the pee bucket and wondering if he could stand Jared’s dark eyes on him while he made a dash for it. He almost couldn’t meet them.

“Jensen…”

At that, he forced himself to. “Yeah?”

There was nothing on Jared’s face but care, concern tinged with bewilderment, bracketed by residual heat.

For the second time, he asked:

“What happened?”

Still anticipating revulsion or some other kind of blow, Jensen wet his lips. “It’s, uh… it’s a long story.”


End file.
